LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OP 

CALffORNIA 
t       SAN  DIEGO 


presented  to  the 
UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
SAN  DIEGO 

by 

Mrs.    Griff ing  Bancroft 


Study  of  Genius  *  *  *  *  * 

******  By  N.  K.  Royse. 


Chicago  and  New  York  *  *  * 

Rand,  McNally  &  Company 


4  * 


Copyright,   1890,  by  Rand,  McNally  &  Cr 


PREFACE. 


''Another  book  on  Genius!  Why,  if  all 
the  works  already  printed  on  this  subject 
were  collected,  they  would  form  no  small 
library  in  themselves." 

Your  point  is  well  taken,  my  critic.  Many 
and  divers  are  the  books  on  genius.  What, 
however,  is  remarkable  in  this  matter  is,  that 
each  of  these  many  works  treats  of  but  a 
single  phase  of  this  really  complex  subject. 
One  discusses  genius  in  its  relations  to  hered- 
ity; another  investigates  its  connection  with 
insanity;  a  third  sets  forth  the  self-con- 
sciousness of  genius;  a  fourth,  the  preco- 
ciousness  of  genius;  a  fifth  pictures  the  envi- 
ronments of  genius;  while  others  still  are 
mere  collections  of  anecdotes^  designed  more 
for  the  entertainment  of  readers  than  for 
the  elucidation  of  any  special  aspects  of 
genius. 

In  view,  therefore,  of  the  very  special 
nature  of  the  works  heretofore  published  on 
the  subject  of  genius,  it  has  seemed  to  the 
present  writer  that  there  was  still  room  for 

(T) 


8  PREFACE. 

a  treatise  whose  aim  is  a  comprehensive 
view  of  the  separate  divisions  of  the  subject 
already  considered,  to  the  end  of  generaliz- 
ing therefrom  a  tolerably  definite  conception 
of  the  real  nature  of  genius,  and  of  the  con- 
ditions of  its  rise  and  development. 

What  are  the  essential  elements  of  genius* 
what  the  relations  as  to  cause  and  effect  of 
genius  and  its  environments  ?  what  the 
opportunities  of  the  present  and  the  future 
for  the  rise  of  geniuses,  as  compared  with 
those  of  the  past '.  —  These  are  the  main 
themes  which  it  is  the  special  province  of 
this  work  to  consider. 

The  author  gratefully  acknowledges  his 
obligations  to  preceding  writers  on  this  sub- 
ject for  the  abundant  and  carefully  selected 
data  their  works  have  supplied;  and  trusts 
that  his  inductions  from  the  same,  while  they 
may  not  be  unworthy  of  these  suggestive 
materials,  may  satisfactorily  account  for  the 
appearance  of  his  own  work  among  the 
already  large  family  of  books  on  genius. 

N.  K.  KOYSE. 
CINCINNATI,  OHIO. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

DEFINITIONS  OF  GENIUS. 

Ancient  Application  of  the  Word  Genius.— Its  Employ- 
ment in  this  Work. — Imperfect  Knowledge  of  The 
Parentage  and  Early  Surroundings  of  Geniuses. — 
Cause  of  the  Varying  Definitions  of  Genius. — Is 
Genius  Originality?  Opinions  of  Dr.  Johnson, 
Emerson,  Talfourd,  Addison,  Dryden,  Crabbe, 
Willis,  Bulwer,  Hazlitt,  Lowell,  Bain.— Is  Genius 
Anticipation  ?  Opinions  of  Longfellow,  Macaulay , 
Alison. — Is  Genius  Breadth?  Opinions  of  Emer- 
son, Carlyle,  Longfellow,  Lowell,  De  Quincey, 
Grant  Allen. — Is  Genius  ComtructieenesH?  Opin- 
ions of  Emerson,  Matthew  Arnold,  Taine. — Is 
Genius  Concentration?  Opinions  of  Goethe  and 
Johnson.— Is  Genius  Patience?  Opinion  of  Buf- 
fon. — Is  Genius  Common  Sense? 17 

CHAPTER  II. 

18  GENIUS  MADNESS? 

Affirmative  Views  of  Plato,  Aristotle,  Pascal,  Did- 
erot, Lamartine,  and  Dryden. — A  Full  Discussion  of 
the  Question,  by  James  Sully. — Varieties  of  Mental 
Unsoundness — Absence  of  Mind,  Persistence  of 
Vivid  Ideas,  Hallucinations,  Extreme  Violence  of 
Temper  and  Self-Insistence,  Ungovernable  Phys- 
ical Appetites,  Melancholy  and  Hypochondria,  Deti- 
(9) 


10  CONTENTS. 

nite  Mental  Diseases,  Whimsicalness,  Inconsist 
ency — with  Examples  of  Each. — Explanation  of  the 
Foregoing,  .  .  . 37 

CHAPTER  III. 

is  GENIUS  MADNESS? — Concluded.  9 

Negative  Views  of  Charles  Lamb,  Coleridge,  and  Dr. 
William  G.  Stevenson. — Opinions  of  Ancients  of 
no  Scientific  Value. — All  Varieties  of  Mental  Dis- 
order More  Common  among  Men  of  Meager  or  no 
Abilities  than  among  Geniuses,  .....  5? 

CHAPTER  IV. 

IS   GENIUS  CHARACTER? 

Affirmative  Opinions  of  John  Burroughs  and  De 
Quincey. — Negative  Opinion  of  Lowell,  _  .  63 

CHAPTER  V. 

COMMENTS  ON   FOREGOING  DEFINITIONS  OP  GENIUS. 

Each  View  Partly  Right,  None  Wholly  So.— The 
Common  Element  in  All. — Genius  is  Uncommon- 
ness  of  Intellectual  Endowment  in  the  Ascending 
Scale, 65 

CHAPTER  VI. 

PRECOCITY. 

Is  Genius  Characterized  by  Precocity?  The  Affirm- 
ative View  Supported  by  Seventy-four  Eminent 
Examples. — The  Negative  View  Favored  by  about 
Fifty  Equally  Weighty  Examples.— Tabular  Ex- 
hibit of  the  Merits  of  the  Question,  Derived  from 
Investigation  of  the  Lives  of  Three  Hundred  of  the 
Foremost  Geniuses  of  the  World. — Conclusion,  .  81 


CONTENTS.  11 

CHAPTER  VII. 

GENIUS  AND  LABOR. 

Do  the  Creations  of  Genius  Involve  Labor? — Affirm- 
ative View  Favored  by  Longfellow,  Ruskin, 
Carlyle,  Thomas  Moore,  James  Sully,  Tacitus, 
Hogarth,  Charles  Sumner,  Buffon. — Examples  of 
the  Foregoing  View. — Contraiy  Opinions  of  Emer- 
son and  Carlyle. — Examples  in  Support  of  Latter 
View. — The  Amount  of  Labor  Dependent  upon 
the  Nature  of  the  Sphere  in  Which  the  Genius 
Moves. — With  all  Geniuses  Original  Ideas  or 
Conceptions  are  Spontaneous,  or  Nearly  so;  Con- 
scious Labor  being  Demanded  Chiefly  for  Giving 
Material  Expression  to  those  Conceptions,  99 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

IS  GENIUS  SELF-CONSCIOUS? 

Affirmative  Opinions  of  John  Burroughs,  Ruskin, 
Schopenhauer,  Goethe,  Lord  Lytton. — Examples  of 
Foregoing  Opinions. — Negative  Views  of  Carlyle 
and  Hazlitt. — Examples  Confirming  the  Latter 
View. — All  Geniuses  are  Self-Conscious,  but  they 
Differ  in  their  Control  of  its  Manifestation  to 
Others, 123 

CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  ACCIDENTS. 

Verified  by  Incidents  in  the  Lives  of  Cuvier,  Galileo, 
Newton,  Handel,  Haydn,  Schubert,  Shakespeare, 
Claude  Lorraine,  Gibbon,  Giotto,  Rubens,  Cow- 
per,  Milton,  Burns,  Mabillon,  Wallenstein,  Pisano, 
Beethoven,  Cromwell,  Walton,  Cowley,  Moliere, 


12  CONTENTS. 

Franklin,  Ignatius  Loyola,  Rousseau,  La  Fontaine, 
West,  Jenny  Lind,  Nilsson,  Linnaeus,  Canova, 
Longfellow,  ___________  145 

CHAPTER   X. 

IS   GENIUS   HEREDITARY? 

The  Popular  Belief  that  Genius  is  not  Hereditary. — 
Synopsis  of  Gallon's  Work  on  "Hereditary 
Genius." — Grant  Allen's  Opinion  Favoring  the 
same  view.  —  Criticism  of  said  Opinion. — The 
Contrast  between  the  Biases  of  Geniuses  and 
those  of  their  Parents. — Geniuses  whose  Biases 
have  been  similar  to  those  of  their  Parents. — 
Preponderance  of  the  Former  Instances. — Only 
Mediocre  Abilities,  or,  at  best,  Talents,  Trans- 
mitted.— Comparative  Inferiority  of  the  Immediate 
Descendants  of  Geniuses. — Emerson's  Opinion  of 
Gallon's  Work. — Geniuses  either  do  not  Marry,  or 
else  have  but  few  Children. — Opinions  of  Francis 
Bacon  and  Charles  Morris  on  these  Points. — 
Examples  of  the  Same. — Scientific  Reason  for  the 
Infertility  of  Geniuses. — Summary  Favoring  the 
Soundness  of  the  Popular  Belief,  .  157 

CHAPTER  XI. 

GENIUS  AND   ITS  ENVIRONMENT. 

Varieties  of  Environment:  («)  Home  and  School 
Training;  (b)  Geographical  Surroundings;  (c)  One's 
Race;  (d)  The  Age  in  which  One  Lives. — Influences 
of  Early  Training :  First,  those  Favorable; 
Examples  of  Such.  Secondly,  Unfavorable  Influ- 
ences; Examples  of  the  Latter. — Preponderance  of 
the  Latter,  187 


CONTENTS.  io 

CHAPTER  XII. 

GEOGRAPHICAL  ENVIRONMENT. 

Effects  upon  Man  and  His  Habitat  of  the  Extremes 
of  Temperature,  and  of  Configuration. — A  Mean 
between  these  Extremes  Necessary  for  the  Best 
Products  either  of  the  Soil  or  the  Intellect. — 
Potency  of  Physical  Environment  as  seen  in  the 
Symbolism  of  the  Earlier  Religious  Conceptions 
of  Mankind. — All  Remarkable  Peoples,  and  there- 
fore all  Remarkable  Individuals,  have  Flourished 
within  Hospitable  Physical  Bounds. — The  Geo- 
graphical Lines  of  such  Region,  .....  203 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

ENVIHONMENT. — INFLUENCE  OF  RACE. 

All  Great  Achievements  have  Proceeded  from  either 
the  Caucasian  or  the  Mongolian  Race,  ergo,  all 
Geniuses  have  Emerged  from  One  or  the  Other  of 
these  Races. — Confirmatory  Opinions  of  Grant 
Allen  and  John  Burroughs,  .  .  .  211 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

ENVIRONMENT. — INFLUENCE  OF  THE  AGE. 

That  the  Age  forms  the  Man  is  affirmed  by  Ma- 
caulay,  Alison,  Matthew  Arnold,  and  Emerson. — 
Influence  of  Enlightenment. — Opinion  of  Addison. 
— Macaulay  regards  the  Creative  and  the  Critical 
Faculties  as  opposed  to  each  other. — Reasons  of 
Alison  for  believing  Civilization  an  impediment 
to  the  rise  of  Geniuses. — An  Enlightened  Age 
unfavorable  to  the  rise  of  only  one  sort  of 
Genius  —  the  one  whose  creations  involve  chiefly 
the  free  exercise  of  the  imagination  and  the 


14  CONTENTS. 

emotions — all  others  being    favored  by    increase 

of  knowledge,      ._._„_____.      217 

CHAPTER  XV. 

ENVIRONMENT. — INFLUENCE  OP  THE   AGE — Continued. 

The  Great  Geniuses  of  the  Race  center  around  the 
Fourth  and  Fifth  Centuries  before  Christ,  and  the 
Sixteenth,  Seventeenth,  Eighteenth,  and  Nine- 
teenth of  our  own  Era. — The  Geniuses  of  the 
Ante-Christian  Centuries  have  belonged  almost 
entirely  to  the  Greek  Nationality — Reasons  for 
this  Monopoly. — The  four  Genius-attracting  Cent- 
uries of  the  Christian  Era  considered  in  Chrono- 
logical Order. — Preparatory  Events. — The  discov- 
ery of  Gunpowder,  invention  of  the  Mariner's 
Compass,  rounding  of  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  dis- 
covery of  America,  revival  of  Literature  and  of 
the  Arts  and  Sciences,  and  the  Reformation. — The 
Sixteenth  Century — its  Wars,  its  Scientific  Prog- 
ress, its  wonderful  Art  and  Literary  develop- 
ments.— The  Seventeenth  Century. — Rise  of  the 
Spirit  of  Nationality. — Wars  of  the  Century,  and  its 
Illustrious  Military  Leaders. — Its  Intellectual  Move- 
ments.— The  Golden  Age  of  France. — Literature 
and  Science  in  England,  and  Art  on  the  Con- 
tinent, ...  . 229 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

ENVIRONMENT. — INFLUENCE  OF  THE  AGE — Continued. 

The  Eighteenth  Century — Its  Wars  and  their  Great 
Generals — Its  Industrial  and  Commercial  Prog- 
ress— Development  of  the  Arts,  Sciences,  and  Lit- 
erature— Dominancy  of  French  Ideas — England's 
Contribution  to  the  Literary  and  Scientific  Tri- 


CONTENTS.  15 

timphs  of  the  Century. — The  Nineteenth  Century 
— Rise  and  Spread  of  the  Doctrine  of  Popular 
Sovereignty — The  Wars  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte — 
The  American  Rebellion — Non-military  Currents 
of  the  Century — The  Rise  of  the  Romantic  and 
Idealistic  Schools  of  Writers;  their  Displace- 
ment by  the  Realists — Marvelous  Development  of 
the  Sciences — Imprints  of  the  Characteristic 
Social  and  Political  Movements  of  the  Age  upon 
Modern  Music  and  Art,  --------  251 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

ENVIRONMENT.— INFLUENCE  OF  THE  AGE — Continued. 

The  Relations  as  to  Cause  and  Effect  of  the  Genius 
and  His  Epoch. — When  the  Most  General  Interests 
of  Society  or  the  State  are  to  be  affected,  the 
Initiative  of  Influence  Inheres  in  the  Mass — Illus- 
trated in  such  Movements  as  the  Reformation,  the 
French  Revolution,  and  the  American  Rebellion. — 
When  the  Immediate  Effects  of  a  Movement  are 
necessarily  restricted  to  a  few,  then  the  Individ- 
ual, the  Genius,  becomes  the  Initiator — Illus- 
trated iu  the  Rise  and  Propagation  of  Various 
Scientific  Theories,  and  in  the  Formation  of  the 
Various  Schools  of  Art,  of  Music,  and  of  Letters,  269 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

ENVIRONMENT. — INFLUENCE  OF  THE  AGE — Concluded. 

The  Inter-relations  of  the  Genius  and  His  Environ- 
ment— Illustrated  by  a  Well-known  Fact  of  Vege- 
table Physiology. — This  View  Favored  by  Opin- 
ions of  Grant  Allen  and  Herbert  Spencer. — Sum- 
mary of  the  Whole  Subject  by  William  James,  .  291 


f>  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

ATTITUDE  OF    THE    PRESENT    AND    THE    FUTURE    TOWARD 
GENIUSES. 

The  best  that  is  possible  has  been  already  attained 
in  Architecture,  in  Sculpture,  in  Human  Figure- 
Painting,  in  Literature,  and  in  Music. — Possible 
Exceptions  as  regards  Historians,  Critics,  and 
Fictionists. — Inferiority  of  the  Poetry  of  the  Pres- 
ent Day. — Scientific  Discovery  and  Mechanical 
Invention  the  only  Fields  open  to  Future  Gen 
iuses. — Science  comes  to  the  Rescue  of  the  Non- 
Scientific  Mind  from  Mediocrity,  by  Her  Promise  of 
a  Future  in  which  the  Human  Family  will  far 
surpass  all  its  Antecedent  Experiences,  in  Brain- 
power and  Organization. — Uncertain  Nearness  of 
Such  Promised  Novum  Organum. — Relativity  of 
Greatness,  299 


A  STUDY  OF  GENIUS. 


CHAPTER   I. 

DEFINITIONS    OF  GENIUS. 

Ancient  Application  of  the  Woi'd  Genius — Its  Employment  in 
this  Work. — Imperfect  Knowledge  of  tJie  Parentage  and 
Early  Surroundings  of  Geniuses. — Cause  of  tJie  Varying 
Definitions  of  Genius. — Is  Genius  Originality?  Opinions 
of  Dr.  Johnson,  Emerson,  Talfourd,  Addison,  Dryden, 
Crabbe,  Willis,  Bulwer,  Hazlitt,  Lowell,  Bain. — Is  Genius 
Anticipation?  Views  of  Longfellow,  Macaulay,  Alison. — 
Is  Genius  Breadth?  Opinions  of  Emerson,  Carlyle,  Long- 
fellow, Lowell,  De  Quincey,  Grant  Allen. — Is  Genius  Con- 
structiveness?  Opinions  of  Emerson,  Matthew  Arnold, 
Taine. — Is  Genius  Concentration?  Opinions  of  Goetlw 
and  Johnson. — Is  Genius  Patience?  Opinion  of  Buff  on. 
— Is  Genius  Common  Sense? 

The  word  genius,  we  are  told,  is  a  Latin 
translation  of  a  Tuscan  term  which  signifies 
generator,  and  the  ancient  Romans  employed 
it  to  designate  the  tutelary  god,  or  demon, 
who  was  supposed  to  preside  over  the  birth 
and  destiny  of  every  male;  the  immortal  who 
performed  a  similar  office  for  females  being 

2  (17) 


18  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

called  a  Juno.  Places,  also,  and  inanimate 
objects,  were  fabled  to  have  their  genii. 
These,  in  the  case  of  persons,  were  sometimes 
supposed  to  accompany  them  in  pairs — a 
white,  or  auspicious  genius,  and  a  black,  or 
fatal  one.  By  others  still  the  genius  was 
regarded  as  being  black  and  white  by  turns. 
To  these  genii,  however  conceived,  divine 
honors  were  invariably  paid,  and  their  favor- 
able disposition  was  invoked,  particularly 
on  birthdays,  by  offerings  and  sacrifices. 

Query:  Was  it  an  induction  from  their 
experience,  a  freak  of  masculine  unfairness, 
a  prophetic  intuition,  or  a  mere  verbal  prefer- 
ence, that  caused  the  Roman  to  restrict  the 
birth-presiding  genius  to  the  male  sex? 
Whatever  be  the  explanation,  certain  it  is 
that  the  history  of  mankind,  both  ante  and 
post  Roman,  has  vindicated  the  sagacity  of 
rthe  ancient  limitation,  by  discovering  almost 
every  instance  of  genuine  genius  among  the 
males  of  the  human  family. 

Moreover,  the  latest  utterances  of  modern 
science  would  have  us  regard  the  female 
as  the  conservative  factor  in  reproduction, 


DEFINITIONS  OF   GENIUS.  19 

and  all  new  variations  as  caused  by  the  influ- 
ence of  the  male. 

Genius,  according  to  its  first — its  Roman 
acceptation,  became  greatly  changed,  like 
many  other  conceptions  of  classic  mythology, 
as  paganism  declined;  until,  finally,  surren- 
dering all  its  supernatural  elements,  it  came 
to  mean  any  special  bent  or  aptitude  of  the 
human  mind;  as  when  we  speak  of  a  genius 
for  painting,  or  for  poetry,  or  for  music,  or 
for  statecraft,  and  so  forth.  Somewhere 
between  the  foregoing  extreme  conceptions, 
we  apprehend,  and  partaking  somewhat  of 
the  nature  of  both,  is  the  mysterious-famil- 
iar, the  divine-human  quality,  genius,  which 
we  purpose  to  make  the  subject  of  our  pres- 
ent study. 

DEFINITIONS    OF   GENIUS. 

What  is  genius?  If  we  may  test  this 
question  in  the  crossing  lights  of  the  many 
answers  that  have  been  proposed,  we  may 
pronounce  it  a  riddle  worthy  to  have  issued 
from  the  stony  lips  of  the  Egyptian  Sphinx, 
or  one  of  equal  perplexity  to  the  time-hon- 


20  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

ored  inquiry,  What  is  Truth?  or  the  conun- 
drum of  modern  science,  What  is  Life? 

One  difficulty,  perhaps  the  main  one,  that 
lies  in  the  way  of  arriving  at  a  satisfactory 
solution  of  the  question,  is  the  scantiness  of 
our  knowledge  concerning  the  parentage  and 
earliest  surroundings  of  men  of  genius  very 
generally.  Emerson  has  said  that  "Great 
geniuses  have  the  shortest  biographies." 
We  can  not  concur  in  this  statement;  for, 
if  we  have  read  history  aright,  it  is  but  little 
more  than  a  compendium  of  the  biographies 
of  the  world's  greatest  men.  If  we  except  a 
few — comparatively  a  very  few — and  those 
the  men  who  have  flourished  in  the  morning- 
hours  of  their  country' s  existence  or  of  cer- 
tain historic  epochs,  such,  for  example,  as 
Homer,  Solon,  Pythagoras,  Chaucer,  Herod- 
otus, Phidias,  Alfred  the  Great,  we  shall 
find  that  the  history  of  the  world  is  quite 
satisfactory  in  its  presentation  of  the  leading- 
acts  of  the  lives  of  the  most  influential  of 
the  human  family. 

It  does,  however,  very  frequently  fail  to 
throw  any  light,  or,  at  best,  a  very  partial 


DEFINITIONS    OF  GENIUS.  21 

and  fitful  one,  upon  the  characteristics  of 
the  parents  of  genuises  and  the  environments 
of  their  earlier  years.  And  this,  it  can  not 
be  denied,  is  a  very  grave,  if  not  fatal,  omis- 
sion. It  is  one  of  the  fundamental  laws  of 
mechanics  that,  in  order  to  determine  the 
direction  a  body  will  take  and  the  momentum 
at  w'hich  it  will  move,  it  is  necessary  to  know 
the  number,  direction,  and  velocity  of  the 
bodies  that  impinge  upon  it.  Just  so,  we 
claim,  in  order  to  comprehend  the  nature  of 
genius  and  the  laws  that  govern  its  evolution, 
it  is  first  necessary  that  we  become  acquainted 
with  those  vital  forces — the  physical,  mental, 
and  moral  peculiarities  of  parents — that  enter 
into  the  constitution  of  the  child,  and  also 
that  earliest  environment  of  persons,  places, 
and  things,  that  more  or  less  modifies  the  ten- 
dencies of  original  endowment. 

Those,  therefore,  who  have  studied  genius 
with  a  view  to  formulating  a  definition  of  it, 
have  been  obliged,  for  the  greater  part,  to 
interpret  it  by  its  more  material  manifesta- 
tions, rather  than  by  its  primal  characteristics 
—its  most  nearly  spontaneous  energies.  They 


22  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

stand,  as  it  were,  upon  the  bank  of  a  myste- 
rious river,  and  catching  up  a  glassful  of  its 
apparently  homogeneous  water,  endeavor  to 
discover  therein  the  multitudinous,  widely 
different,  and  mutually  modifying  elements 
of  the  several  lesser  streams  that  have  con- 
tributed to  its  volume.  Is  it  any  wonder 
that  there  should  be  a  great  diversity  of 
opinion,  seeing  that  each  experimenter  occu- 
pies a  different  stand-point — one  being  prob- 
ably near  the  headwaters,  another  not  far 
from  the  mouth,  and  a  third  midway  between 
these  two?  It  could  hardly  be  otherwise. 
Since,  then,  our  knowledge  of  genuises  can 
not  be  drawn,  except  in  a  few  cases,  from  the 
most  desirable  sources,  let  us  consider,  in  our 
present  study,  the  best  information  we  can 
obtain  upon  the  subject,  and  extract  from  it 
what  satisfaction  we  may  be  able. 

IS   GENIUS    OEIGINALITY? 

In  formulating  a  definition  of  genius,  or, 
presuming  it  to  be  a  composite,  in  enumerat- 
ing the  elements  that  enter  into  its  composi- 
tion, we  venture  to  say  that  originality  is 
the  first  that  suggests  itself  to  the  mind. 


IS  GENIUS   ORIGINALITY?  23 

We  can  not  conceive  of  genius  except  as 
something  extraordinary,  and  of  this  quality 
originality  is  the  very  essence.  The  mean- 
ing of  the  word  originality — the  quality  of 
being  first,  whether  in  the  discovery  or  the 
enunciation  of  a  truth — the  quality  of  being 
unlike  all  others — of  being  unique — of  being 
self-sufficient — the  distinction  of  being  the 
source,  the  spring,  the  archetype  of  all  that 
goes  to  make  up  each  of  the  various  currents 
of  thought,  of  feeling,  and  of  action  that 
prevail  among  men — this  preeminence  be- 
longs most  obviously  to  him  whom  we  call  a 
genius.  Not  that  this  is  the  only  belonging, 
but,  assuredly,  that  it  is  the  most  obtrusive, 
startling,  and  dazzling  facet  of  the  human 
diamond. 

What,  doubtless,  makes  this  phase  of 
genius — if  it  be  simply  a  phase — so  readily 
perceptible  to  us,  is  our  natural  yearning 
for  the  novel — our  uncontrollable  curiosity— 
our  untiring  quest  for  something  unlike  all 
the  ordinary  happenings  of  experience.  And 
very  probably  when  we  have  found  our 
unique,  we  may  not  like  him;  for  he  shocks 


24  A   STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

our  ideas,  ignores  our  formalities,  and  muti- 
lates, if  he  does  not  completely  overturn, 
our  idols,  whether  of  the  hand  or  the  mind. 

In  the  opinions  that  follow,  we  shall  en- 
deavor to  ascertain  in  how  far  this  brilliant 
quality,  originality,  may  be  accepted  as  the 
synonym  for  genius. 

Doctor  Johnson  says,  in  his  essay  on  Mil- 
ton, that  "  The  highest  praise  of  genius  is 
original  invention.1'  In  this  view  Emerson 
evidently  coincides,  for  he  declares,  in  his 
essay  on  Intellect:  "  To  genius  must  always 
go  two  gifts,  the  thought  and  the  publication. 
The  first  is  revelation,  always  a  miracle 
which  no  frequency  of  occurrence  or  inces- 
sant study  can  ever  familiarize,  but  which 
must  always  leave  the  inquirer  stupid  with 
wonder.  It  is  the  advent  of  truth  into  the 
world,  a  form  of  thought  now  for  the  first 
time  bursting  into  the  universe,  a  child  of 
the  old  eternal  soul,  a  piece  of  genuine  and 
immeasurable  greatness.  It  seems,  for  the 
time,  to  inherit  all  that  has  yet  existed,  and 
to  dictate  to  the  unborn." 

The  same  author,  in  his  volume  on  Repre- 


IS   GENIUS   ORIGINALITY  ?  25 

sentative  Men,  asserts:  "The  highest  merit 
we  ascribe  to  Moses,  Plato,  and  Milton,  is 
that  they  set  at  naught  books  and  traditions, 
and  spoke  not  what  men,  but  what  they 
thought.  .  .  .  He  is  great  who  is  what  he  is 
from  nature,  and  who  never  reminds  us  of 
others."  And  farther  on  he  adds:  "Every 
great  man  is  a  unique."  George  Eliot 
declares:  "Genius  itself  is  not  en  regie;  it 
comes  into  the  world  to  make  new  rules." 

Accordant  with  the  foregoing  is  the  opin- 
ion of  Thomas  N.  Talfourd,  as  expressed  in 
his  article  on  The  Author  of  Waverly.  He 
says:  "On  the  whole,  genius  has  privileges 
of  its  own;  it  selects  an  orbit  for  itself." 

Doubtless  it  is  to  men  who  possess  genius 
of  the  foregoing  variety  that  Addison  refers 
in  the  following  passage:  "Those  who  by 
the  mere  strength  of  natural  parts,  and  with- 
out any  assistance  of  art  or  learning,  have 
produced  works  that  were  the  delight  of 
their  own  times,  and  the  wonder  of  posterity. 
There  appears  something  nobly  wild  and 
extravagant  in  these  great  natural  geniuses, 
that  is  infinitely  more  beautiful  than  all  the 


26  A   STUDY   OF    GENIUS. 

turn  and  polishing  of  what  the  French  call 
a  bel  esprit,  by  which  they  would  express  a 
genius  refined  by  conversation,  reflection, 
and  the  reading  of  the  most  polite  authors." 
Of  geniuses  of  this  class,  he  names  Homer 
and  Shakespeare. 

The  poets  also  bear  their  testimony  to  the 
foregoing  conception  of  genius.  Dryden 
writes: 

"Time,  place,  and  action  may  with  pains  be  wrought, 
But  genius  must  be  born,  and  never  can  be  taught." 

Crabbe  exclaims: 

"  Genius!  thou  gift  of  Heaven!  thou  light  divine!  " 

Willis  sings: 

"They  say  that  he  has  genius.    I  but  see 

That  he  gets  wisdom  as  the  flower  gets  hue, 
While  others  hive  it  like  the  toiling  bee; 

That  with  him  all  things  beautiful  keep  new." 

And  Bulwer  chimes  in: 

"Genius,  the  Pythian  of  the  Beautiful, 
Leaves  its  large  truths  a  riddle  to  the  Dull — 
From  eyes  profane  a  veil  the  Iris  screens, 
And  fools  on  fools  still  ask — what  Hamlet  means." 

Hazlitt,  in  his  Table  Talk,  follows  in  pretty 
much  the  same  train  of  thought,  except  that 
he  goes  a  step  farther,  and  essays  to  tell  us 


IS  GENIUS   ORIGINALITY  ?  27 

what  originality  is.  He  says:  "  Genius,  or 
originality,  is,  for  the  most  part,  some  strong 
quality  in  the  mind,  answering  to  and  bring- 
ing out  some  new  and  striking  quality  in 
Nature.  .  .  .  It  is  sufficiently  exclusive  and 
self-willed,  quaint  and  peculiar.  It  does 
some  one  thing  by  virtue  of  doing  nothing 
else;  it  excels  in  some  one  pursuit  by  being 
blind  to  all  excellence  but  its  own.  It  is  just 
the  reverse  of  the  chameleon,  for  it  does  not 
borrow,  but  lends  its  colors  to  all  about  it; 
or,  like  the  glow-worm,  discloses  a  little  circle 
of  gorgeous  light  in  the  twilight  of  obscurity, 
in  the  night  of  intellect,  that  surrounds  it. 
.  .  .  This  is  the  test  and  triumph  of  origi- 
nality, not  to  show  us  what  has  never  been, 
and  what  we  may,  therefore,  very  easily 
never  have  dreamt  of,  but  to  point  out  to 
us  what  is  before  our  eyes  and  under  our 
feet,  though  we  have  had  no  suspicion  of  its 
existence,  for  want  of  sufficient  strength  of 
intuition,  of  determined  grasp  of  mind  to 
seize  and  retain  it.  ...  Originality  is  the 
seeing  Nature  differently  from  others,  and 
yet  as  it  is  in  itself."  He  names  Rembrandt 


28  A   STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

and  Wordsworth  as  being  notable  illustra- 
tions of  his  definition  of  originality. 

Precisely  the  same  thought  as  the  last 
one  is  that  of  Lowell's,  in  his  essay  on 
Chaucer,  which  runs:  "To  make  the  com- 
mon marvelous,  as  it  were  a  revelation,  is 
the  test  of  genius." 

Bain,  in  his  work  on  the  Study  of  Charac- 
ter, after  referring  to  two  partial  definitions 
of  genius,  says:  "The  third  meaning,  that  I 
would  especially  advert  to,  is,  I  think,  the 
most  appropriate  of  all.  I  refer  to  the 
power  of  Originality,  Invention,  Discovery, 
Creation,  as  opposed  to  the  mere  mastery 
(no  matter  how  skillful  and  effective)  of 
what  has  been  already  known.  .  .  .  The 
principle  of  like  recalling  like,  through  the 
disguises  of  diversity,  this  I  count  the  lead- 
ing fact  of  genius.  ...  A  naturalist  may 
be  original  by  traversing  an  unexplored  field 
—the  proof  of  genius  is  to  make  discoveries 
in  a  well-paced  track." 

IS   GENIUS   ANTICIPATION  ? 

Another  conception  of  genius  is  that  it  is 
the  power  to  foresee  or  anticipate  truths  or 


IS  GENIUS   ANTICIPATION?  29 

the  issues  of  passing  events.  Longfellow 
evidently  had  this  view  in  mind  when  he 
penned  the  following  lines  in  Hyperion : 
"  It  has  become  a  common  saying,  that  men 
of  genius  are  always  in  advance  of  their  age; 
which  is  true.  There  is  something  equally 
true,  yet  not  so  common;  namely,  that,  of 
these  men  of  genius,  the  best  and  bravest 
are  in  advance  not  only  of  their  own  age, 
but  of  every  age.  As  the  German  prose- 
poet  *  says,  every  possible  future  is  behind 
them." 

Macaulay,  in  writing  of  Dryden,  illustrates 
the  above  idea  as  follows:  "  The  sun  illumi- 
nates the  hills  while  it  is  still  below  the 
horizon,  and  truth  is  discovered  by  the  high- 
est minds  a  little  before  it  becomes  manifest 
to  the  multitude.  This  is  the  extent  of  their 
superiority.  They  are  the  first  to  catch  and 
reflect  a  light  which,  without  their  assistance, 
must  in  a  short  time  be  visible  to  those  who 
lie  far  beneath  them." 

Not  only  the  same  idea,  but  the  same 
method  of  presenting  it,  was  present  with 

*  Richter. 


30  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

Alison  when,  in  his  essay  on  Bossuet,  he 
wrote:  "  The  greatest  intellect  perceives  only 
the  coming  light;  the  rays  of  the  rising  sun 
strike  first  upon  the  summits  of  the  mount- 
ains, but  his  ascending  beams  will  soon 
illuminate  the  slopes  on  their  sides  and  the 
valleys  at  their  feet." 

IS   GENIUS   BREADTH? 

The  preceding  definitions  have  represented 
genius  as  an  extraordinary  development  of 
human  nature  in  some  one  of  its  many  ten- 
dencies ;  the  definition  now  presented  is  en- 
tirely different  from  these,  in  that  it  would 
have  genius  to  signify  extraordinary  com- 
pass— universal  grasp. 

Emerson,  in  Representative  Men,  queries: 
"  What  is  a  great  man  but  one  of  great 
affinities,  who  takes  up  into  himself  all  arts, 
sciences,  all  knowables,  as  his  food."  And 
elsewhere  he  declares:  "  Great  men  are  more 
distinguished  by  range  and  extent  than  by 
originality." 

But  not  only  in  the  sweep  of  his  abilities, 
in  the  jurisdiction  of  his  influence  also,  is 
the  genius  a  universal  being.  Carlyle,  in  his 


IS   GENIUS  BKEADTH?  31 

criticism  on  Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson,  holds: 
"The  great  man  does,  in  good  truth,  belong 
to  his  own  age;  nay,  more  so  than  any  other 
man;  being  properly  the  synopsis  and  epit- 
ome of  such  age,  with  its  interests  and  influ- 
ences: but  he  belongs  likewise  to  all  ages, 
otherwise  he  is  not  great.  What  was  tran- 
sitory in  him  passes  away;  and  an  immortal 
part  remains,  the  significance  of  which  is  in 
strict  speech  inexhaustible.  Aloft,  conspic- 
uous, on  his  enduring  basis,  he  stands  there 
serene,  unaltering;  silently  addresses  to  every 
new  generation  a  new  lesson  and  monition." 
In  his  Heroes  and  Hero- Worship,  the  same 
writer,  in  defining  the  potentiality  of  a  genius, 
expresses  himself  in  these  words:  ' '  I  confess, 
I  have  no  notion  of  a  truly  great  man  that 
could  not  be  all  sorts  of  men." 

The  same  uncommon  sort  of  being  was, 
doubtless,  in  Longfellow's  mind  when  he 
wrote: 

"  The  archetypal  man,  and  what  might  be 
The  amplitude  of  Nature's  first  design." 

Again,  this  same  extraordinary  largeness 
and  vigor  of  nature  is  cited  by  Lowell,  in  his 


32  A   STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

essay  on  Wordsworth,  when  defining  origi- 
nality. He  says:  "  What  we  call  originality 
seems  not  so  much  anything  peculiar,  much 
less  anything  odd,  but  that  quality  in  a  man 
which  touches  human  nature  at  most  points 
of  its  circumference,  which  reinvigorates 
the  consciousness  of  our  own  powers  by  re- 
calling and  confirming  our  own  unvalued 
sensations  and  perceptions,  gives  classic  shape 
to  our  amorphous  imaginings,  and  adequate 
utterance  to  our  own  stammering  conceptions 
or  emotions." 

Quite  different  in  the  terms  of  its  state- 
ment, though  quite  as  effectively  expressive 
of  the  same  idea  of  extraordinary  breadth, 
is  De  Quincey's  definition  of  genius.  He 
writes:  "Genius  is  that  mode  of  intellectual 
power  which  moves  in  alliance  with  genial 
nature — •/.  <?.,  with  the  capacities  of  pleasure 
and  pain,  whereas  talent  has  no  vestige  of 
such  an  alliance,  and  is  perfectly  independ- 
ent of  all  human  sensibilities;  consequently 
genius  is  a  voice  or  breathing  which  repre- 
sents the  total  nature  of  man,  and  there- 
fore his  enjoying  and  suffering  nature; 


IS   GENIUS   CONSTRUCTIVENESS.  33 

whilst,   on  the  contrary,   talent   represents 
only  a  single  function  of  that  nature." 

Perhaps  the  most  moderate  statement 
under  this  head,  though  still  an  emphatic 
one,  is  that  of  Grant  Allen  in  a  recent  essay. 
He  says:  "  The  peculiarity  of  a  genius  is, 
that  he  possesses  in  some  one  department  a 
few  more  elements  of  mind  than  most  other 
people  his  contemporaries;  that  he  combines 
in  himself  a  certain  large  number  of  mind- 
factors,  all,  or  nearly  all,  of  which  are  to  be 
severally  found  in  other  people,  but  which 
are  not  to  be  found  in  any  other  one  per- 
son in  the  same  combination." 

IS   GENIUS   CONSTRUCTIVENESS  t 

Emerson  says:  "G-enius  is  intellect  con- 
structive." Matthew  Arnold  would  seem, 
from  the  following  passage,  to  entertain  a 
similar  opinion.  He  writes:  "Creative  lit- 
erary genius  does  not  principally  show  itself 
in  discovering  new  ideas;  this  is  rather  the 
business  of  the  philosopher.  The  grand  work 
of  literary  genius  is  a  work  of  synthesis  and 
exposition,  not  of  analysis  and  discovery;  its 

3 


34  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

gift  lies  in  the  faculty  of  being  happily 
inspired  by  a  certain  intellectual  and  spirit- 
ual atmosphere,  by  a  certain  order  of  ideas, 
when  it  finds  itself  in  them;  of  dealing 
divinely  with  these  ideas,  presenting  them 
in  the  most  effective  and  attractive  combina- 
tions— making  beautiful  works  with  them,  in 
short." 

And  in  our  next  citation,  Taine  shows  us 
how  completely  Milton  exemplified  the  last 
definition  of  the  province  of  genius.  He 
says:  "He  wrote,  not  by  impulse,  and  at 
the  mere  contact  with  things,  but  like  a 
man  of  letters,  a  classic,  in  a  scholar-like 
manner,  with  the  assistance  of  books,  seeing 
objects  as  much  through  previous  writings 
as  in  themselves,  adding  to  his  images  the 
images  of  others,  borrowing  and  recasting 
their  inventions,  as  an  artist  who  unites  and 
multiplies  the  baser  and  driven  gold  already 
entwined  on  a  diadem  by  twenty  workmen." 

IS   GENIUS   CONCENTRATION  \ 

"  Gtenius  is  concentration,"  says  Goethe; 
and  Johnson  concurs  in  this  view. 


IS  GENIUS   COMMON   SENSE.  35 

IS   GENIUS   PATIENCE!! 

Precisely  this  is  what  Buff  on  defines  it 
to  be. 

IS   GENIUS   COMMON   SENSE? 

A  modern  writer,  in  an  essay  in  Temple 
Bar,  declares:  "Genius  is,  after  all,  only 
common  sense  working  at  a  very  high  level." 


CHAPTER  II. 

IS   GENIUS   MADNESS? 

Affirmative  Views  of  Plato,  Aristotle,  Pascal,  Diderot,  Lamar 
tine,  and  Dryden. — A  Full  Discussion  of  the  Question, 
by  James  Sully.  —  Varieties  of  Mental  Unsoundness— 
Absence  of  Mind,  Persistence  of  Vivid  Ideas,  Hallucinor. 
tions,  Extreme  Violence  of  Temper  and  Self -Insistence, 
Ungovernable  Physical  Appetites,  Melancholy  and  Hypo- 
chondria,  Definite  Mental  Diseases,  Whimsicalness,  Incon- 
sistency— with  Examples  of  Each. — Explanation  of  the 
Foregoing. 

Not  a  few  of  those  who  have  written  con- 
cerning genius  have  expressed  the  belief  that 
it  is  a  species  of  mental  unsoundness,  or,  at 
least,  that  it  is  not  ^infrequently  accompa- 
nied by  that  disorder.  The  difference  between 
being  Epiplianes  (illustrious)  and  Epim&nes 
(mad)  is,  in  the  popular  regard,  quite  as 
slight  in  fact  as  it  is  in  print.  Plato  went  so 
far  as  to  intimate  that  the  name  seer  (//d*Tis) 
was  derived  from  the  verb  ^atvo^at,  to  rage, 
or  to  be  mad.  Aristotle,  who  is  allowed  to 
have  been  the  most  nearly  scientific  and  the 
shrewdest  observer  of  antiquity,  claimed  that 

3  (37) 


38  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

geniuses  universally  have  been  melancholic 
and  tinctured  with  positive  madness.  Pascal 
remarks  that  "Extraordinary  wit  is  the 
neighbor  of  extraordinary  madness."  Dide- 
rot laments,  "Oh!  that  genius  and  madness 
should  so  nearly  touch  each  other! "  while 
Lamartine  affirms  that  "Genius  carries  in 
itself  a  principle  of  destruction,  of  death,  of 
madness,  as  the  fruit  carries  the  worm." 
Dry  den's  oft-quoted  lines  will  doubtless  occur 
to  the  reader — 

' '  Great  wits  are  sure  to  madness  near  allied, 
And  thin  partitions  do  their  bounds  divide." 

The  fullest  and  fairest  presentation  of  this 
aspect  of  the  present  question  we  have  ever 
met  with,  is  embodied  in  a  recent  article  in 
the  Nineteenth  Century,  from  the  pen  of 
James  Sully.  As  our  best  means  of  treating 
the  point  before  us,  we  shall  take  the  lib- 
erty of  presenting  a  synopsis  of  the  article, 
together  with  illustrative  extracts  from  the 
same. 

Alluding  to  the  classic  notion  of  genius — 
its  being  a  supernatural  possession — our 


18  GENIUS   MADNESS?  39 

author  remarks:  "The  poet  was  conceived  of 
as  infuriated  or  driven  mad  by  the  god;  and 
a  somewhat  analogous  effect  of  divine  intox- 
ication was  recognized  by  Plato  as  consti- 
tuting the  essence  of  philosophic  intuition. 
Hence,  Greek  and  Roman  literature  abounds 
with  statements  and  expressions  which  tend 
to  assimilate  the  man  of  genius  to  a  mad- 
man." But  madness  in  those  days  was  not 
regarded  as  either  a  pitiable  or  degrading 
affection.  "  So  far  from  this,  it  was  a  com- 
mon idea  that  the  insane  were  themselves 
inspired  by  the  action  of  a  deity. 

1  'The  influence  of  Christianity  and  of  the 
Church  served  at  first  to  brand  mental 
derangement  with  the  mark  of  degradation. 
This  debasement  of  the  idea  of  madness  had, 
however,  no  appreciable  effect  in  dissolving 
the  companionship  of  the  two  ideas  in  popu- 
lar thought;  for  the  attitude  of  the  Church 
was,  for  the  most  part,  hostile  to  new  ideas, 
and  so  to  men  of  original  power.  The  transi- 
tion to  the  modern  period  introduces  us  to 
a  new  conception  both  of  genius  and  insan- 
ity. We  have  learned  to  see  in  it  (genius) 


40  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

the  highest  product  of  Nature's  organic 
energy,  the  last  and  greatest  miracle  of  evo- 
lution. On  the  other  hand,  the  modern 
mind  has  ceased  to  see  in  insanity  a  super- 
natural agency.  Nevertheless,  we  meet  in 
modern  literature  with  an  unmistakable 
tendency  to  maintain  the  old  association  of 
ideas.  Genius  is  now  recognized  as  having  a 
pathological  side,  or  a  side  related  to  mental 
disease. 

"The  writers  who  have  made  the  subject 
their  special  study  agree  as  to  the  central 
fact,  that  there  is  a  relation  between  high 
intellectual  endowment  and  mental  derange- 
ment, though  they  differ  in  the  way  of  denn- 
ing this  relation." 

Our  essayist  then  proceeds  to  enumerate 
the  various  grades  of  mental  disturbance 
that  have  appeared  in  connection  with  men 
of  extraordinary  mental  endowments. 

First,  there  is  that  extreme  state  of  ab- 
straction known  as  absence  of  mind ;  of 
which  Archimedes,  so  absorbed  in  a  problem 
as  not  to  be  aware  of  the  approach  of  his 
Roman  slayer;  Newton  judging  from  the 


IS   GENIUS   MADNESS?  41 

plate  that  a  prankish  friend  had  emptied 
that  he  had  really  eaten  his  dinner;  Bee- 
thoven standing  in  his  night-clothes  before 
an  open  window;  purblind  Doctor  Johnson 
striving  to  read  the  time  upon  the  dial  of 
the  town  clock;  Adam  Smith,  the  distin- 
guished writer  on  political  economy,  walking 
twelve  miles  one  Sunday  morning  along  the 
king's  highway,  and  presenting  himself  in  a 
crowded  church  clothed  solely  in  his  night- 
gown, are  examples. 

Next  in  the  line  of  mental  degeneration 
is  named  the  persistence  of  vivid  ideas;  illus- 
trated by  such  instances  as  Johnson's  repug- 
nance to  certain  alleys  of  London;  Madame 
de  Stael's  belief  that  she  would  suffer  from 
cold  when  buried;  Pascal's  fear  of  a  gulf 
yawning  just  in  front  of  him,  so  overpower- 
ing at  times  as  to  compel  his  being  chained 
to  keep  him  from  leaping  forward;  Caesar 
Augustus  almost  convulsed  by  the  sound  of 
thunder,  and  trying  to  Hee  from  it;  Peter  the 
Great  afraid  to  cross  a  bridge;  Pythagoras 
preferring  death  to  passing  through  a  field 
of  beans;  Scott  opposed  to  visiting  Melrose 


42  A   STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

Abbey  by  moonlight  for  fear  of  bogles;  Mar- 
shal Saxe  terrified  at  sight  of  a  cat;  Byron 
refusing  to  help  anyone  to  salt  at  table,  or 
to  be  helped  himself;  Luther,  Baxter,  and 
Wesley  each  believing  in  witchcraft;  Scali- 
ger  trembling  at  the  sight  of  water-cresses; 
Schiller  keeping  a  drawer  of  rotten  apples  in 
his  study  as  a  necessity  of  living  and  working; 
Rousseau  imagining  a  phantom  continually 
by  his  side;  Luther  seeing  the  devil  person- 
ally present  in  his  study,  and  throwing  an 
inkstand  at  his  head,  and  Mozart  writing  his 
requiem  at  the  behest  of  a  mysterious  "man 
in  black." 

Hallucinations  constitute  the  next  phase 
of  mental  derangement  considered,  exempli- 
fied in  the  cases  of  Luther,  Malebranche, 
Descartes,  Johnson,  Pope,  Byron,  Shelley, 
Napoleon,  Schumann,  and  even  the  well- 
balanced  Goethe. 

Extraordinary  violence  of  temper  and  in- 
sistence of  self,  a  still  more  pronounced 
form  of  intellectual  unsoundness,  is  met  with 
in  such  eminent  persons  as  Pope,  Johnson, 
Swift,  Byron,  Carlyle,  Voltaire,  Rousseau, 


IS   GENIUS   MADNESS?  43 

Beethoven,  Herder,  and  Schopenhauer.  Vol- 
taire, while  living  in  the  house  of  the  Mar- 
quis de  Villette,  at  Paris,  became  so  incensed 
one  day  on  coming  to  the  table  and  not  find- 
ing his  own  particular  cup  in  its  place,  as,  in 
the  presence  of  a  most  distinguished  com- 
pany, to  exclaim  in  the  harshest  terms 
against  the  domestics  that  waited  upon  him, 
and  forthwith  betake  himself  to  his  own 
apartment  and  shut  himself  up.  Jeffrey 
says,  in  substance,  of  Dean  Swift,  that  on 
visiting  a  family,  even  for  the  first  time,  he 
would  prescribe  the  hours  for  their  meals, 
sleep,  and  exercise,  and  rigorously  insist  on 
their  observance;  that  he  was  never  at  ease 
unless  allowed  to  nickname  the  lady  of  the 
house  and  indiscriminately  lampoon  her 
acquaintances;  that  at  the  deanery  he  some- 
times even  chased  his  domestics  up  and 
down  stairs  with  a  large  whip;  that  on  first 
visiting  his  curate's  house  he  announced 
himself  as  his  master,  took  possession  of 
his  fireside,  and  ordered  his  wife  to  take 
charge  of  his  shirts  and  stockings;  and  that, 
in  fine,  he  valued  all  men  only  in  so  far  as 


44  A  STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

they  were  content  to  submit  themselves  to 
his  own  arrogance  and  tyranny.  Dante 
was  wont  to  throw  stones  at  his  enemies  in 
his  younger  days.  Once,  walking  along  the 
streets  of  Florence,  he  met  an  ass-driver 
who,  as  he  sang  certain  passages  from  the 
poet's  book,  occasionally  interjected  an 
"Arri"  to  urge  on  his  beast.  Dante,  in- 
censed beyond  all  control,  struck  the  fellow 
a  severe  blow,  exclaiming,  "That  'Arri' 
was  not  put  in  by  me."  When  Gorner,  a 
talented  organist,  struck  a  wrong  chord  at 
rehearsal,  Bach  tore  off  his  wig,  and,  throw- 
ing it  at  the  organist's  head,  thundered  out, 
"You  ought  to  have  been  a  cobbler  instead 
of  an  organist."  Handel  is  said  to  have 
soundly  berated  and  sworn  in  several  differ- 
ent languages  at  certain  singers,  because 
they  did  not  properly  read  at  first  sight  the 
text  of  the  chorus,  ' '  And  with  His  stripes 
we  are  healed." 

As  completing  the  last-named  class  of 
mental  derangements,  such  positive  moral 
obliquities  as  an  appetite  for  physical  stim- 
ulants and  addiction  to  sexual  excesses  are 


IS  GENIUS   MADNESS?  46 

instanced,  one  or  both  of  which  have  found 
victims  in  such  men  as  ^iEschylus,  Ennius, 
Eupolis,  Ben  Jonson,  Burns,  Poe,  Villan, 
De  Musset,  Gimther,  Burger,  De  Quincey, 
Coleridge,  Schiller,  Blackstone,  Sheridan, 
Addison,  Handel,  and  Gluck. 

A  more  plainly  recognizable  class  of  cases 
than  any  of  the  foregoing,  is  to  be  met  with 
in  those  who  have  exhibited  an  intense  mel- 
ancholy or  hypochondria.  Aristotle  names 
such  eminent  ancients  as  Empedocles,  Soc- 
rates, and  Plato  as  examples  of  this  form  of 
abnormal  development.  So  acute  has  this 
distemper  become  with  some  as  to  drive 
them  to  an  attempt  to  take  their  own  lives, 
as  instanced  in  the  career  of  Goethe  in  the 
Werther  days;  in  Beethoven  shut  out  from 
society  by  deafness;  in  Chateaubriand  and 
George  Sand  in  their  earlier  days;  in  Cowper 
trying  to  hang  himself;  in  Saint-Simon,  who 
attempted  to  blow  out  his  brains;  in  Alfieri 
tearing  off  the  surgeon's  bandage  that  he 
might  bleed  to  death;  in  Schumann  casting 
himself  into  the  Rhine,  and  in  Chatterton 
and  Kleist,  poets,  and  in  Beneke,  the  phil- 
osopher, who  actually  did  commit  suicide. 


46  A   STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

The  next  degree  of  madness  embraces  men 
of  genius  who  have  suffered  from  clearly 
developed  mental  disease.  Sophocles,  the 
Greek  tragic  poet;  Linnaeus,  the  botanist; 
the  poet  Southey;  Swift;  Zimmerman,  the 
author  of  "Solitude,"  and  Scott  are  named 
as  examples  of  senile  dementia.  Other 
instances  in  which  the  disorder  manifested 
itself  at  intervals  throughout  the  more  act- 
ive periods  of  life,  necessitating  a  confine- 
ment of  the  subject,  are  met  with  in  the 
persons  of  Richelieu,  Charles  Lamb,  Cowper, 
Handel,  Comte,  Tasso,  Donizetti,  and  Schu- 
mann. Allied  to  the  foregoing  are  the  num- 
ber of  those  who  have  died  from  nervous 
disorders,  to  wit:  Pascal,  Kepler,  Cuvier, 
Rousseau,  Mozart,  Mendelssohn,  and  Heine. 
Of  those  who  suffered  periodically  from  the 
last-named  cause,  there  may  be  mentioned 
Moliere,  Alfieri,  Paganini,  Schiller,  and 
George  Eliot. 

And  lastly,  come  the  cases  of  those  in 
whose  families  insanity  or  some  acute  nerv- 
ous disorder  has  existed.  Chateaubriand's 
father  died  of  apoplexy ;  Schopenhauer's 


18   OENIUS   MADNESS?  47 

grandmother  and  uncle  were  imbecile;  Rich- 
elieu, Diderot,  Hegel,  and  Lamb  had  insane 
sisters;  while  one  of  Mendelssohn's  sons 
became  insane. 

In  addition  to  the  foregoing  phases  of 
mental  derangement  obtaining  among  men 
of  genius,  and  particularized  by  Mr.  Sully, 
we  feel  warranted  in  noticing  two  others. 
The  first  we  would  call  whimsicalness,  or 
the  subjection  of  the  whole  intellectual 
nature  of  the  man  to  the  tyranny  of  some 
petty,  childish  humor.  Examples  of  this 
are  by  no  means  rare. 

Haydn  had  to  have  his  hair  carefully 
dressed,  his  best  clothes  put  on,  and  a  cer- 
tain diamond  ring  presented  him  by  Fred- 
erick II.  placed  upon  his  finger  before  he 
could  summon  a  single  idea.  Bacon,  in 
spring,  would  expose  himself  to  the  rain  in 
an  open  coach,  to  receive  "the  benefit  of 
irrigation,"  which  he  believed  was  "most 
wholesome  because  of  the  niter  in  the  air, 
and  the  universal  spirit  of  the  world. ' '  Sarti, 
the  composer  of  sacred  music,  obliged  him- 
self to  work  in  the  dark,  declaring  that  light 


48  A    STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

of  any  sort  disconcerted  him.  Dryden,  when 
about  to  enter  on  literary  work,  had  himself 
bled  to  clear  his  brain,  and  then  ate  raw 
meat  to  stimulate  his  imagination.  Handel 
found  the  grave-yard  of  some  village  church 
his  most  congenial  place  for  composition. 
A  bath  and  a  clean  linen  shirt  with  full- 
frilled  bosom  were  the  indispensable  condi- 
tions upon  which  Buff  on' s  mind  consented 
to  work.  The  eminent  French  writer,  Mon- 
taigne, would  not  sit  down  to  write  without 
having  a  favorite  cat  at  his  elbow.  Milton 
would  not  attempt  to  compose  except  between 
the  vernal  and  autumnal  equinoxes.  Frank- 
lin had  a  plate  of  bread  and  cheese  by  his 
side  when  studying,  to  repair  mental  waste, 
as  he  affirmed,  and  also  to  save  time.  Doctor 
Johnson  had  an  insatiable  appetite  for  fish- 
sauce  and  veal-pie,  an  unquenchable  thirst 
for  tea,  a  habit  of  touching  posts  as  he  walked 
the  streets,  and  of  treasuring  up  bits  of 
orange-peel;  kept  the  queerest  kind  of  fel- 
low-lodgers, such  as  blind  old  women,  cats, 
and  negroes,  and  was  a  firm  believer  in 
ghosts.  Goldsmith  indulged  in  reading  abed, 


IS   GENIUS   MADNESS  ?  49 

and  would  extinguish  his  light  by  throwing 
his  slipper  at  it.  Theophile  Gautiere  had 
faith  in  magic  and  in  dreams,  avoided  crossed 
knives,  ran  away  from  an  overturned  salt- 
cellar, and  grew  pale  with  fright  before  three 
lighted  candles.  ' '  It  was  one  of  my  fancies, ' ' 
says  Audubon,  "to  be  ridiculously  fond  of 
dress;  to  hunt  in  black  satin  breeches,  wear 
pumps  when  shooting,  and  dress  in  the  finest 
ruffled  shirts  I  could  obtain  from  France." 

The  other  additional  phase  of  mental 
unsoundness  that  we  would  call  attention  to 
is  what  we  would  class  as  mental  inconsist- 
ency, or  contradiction.  We  meet  with 
illustrations  of  this  infirmity  in  Sir  Thomas 
More  fiercely  prosecuting  for  opinion  while 
advocating  the  rights  of  thought;  Bacon 
teaching  morals  while  taking  bribes;  La 
Fontaine  writing  intrigues  while  personally 
avoiding  a  single  amour;  Young  perpetrating 
wretched  puns  and  penning  Night  Thoughts; 
Sterne  beating  his  wife  and  permitting  his 
mother  to  hunger,  but  crying  over  a  dead 
ass;  Cowper,  feeble  and  despondent,  conceiv- 
ing the  laughable  story  of  John  Gilpin. 


50  A   STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

Handel,  the  composer  of  the  sublimest  of 
oratorios,  was  a  glutton.  The  elder  Dumas 
would  not  only  occasionally  depose  his  serv- 
ants and  cook  his  own  dinner,  but  actually 
wrote  a  cook-book;  and  while  at  one  time 
he  would  spend  his  money  with  the  utmost 
recklessness,  at  another  he  would  practice 
all  manner  of  ingenuity  to  avoid  his  credit- 
ors. Pope,  the  lampooner  of  nearly  all  the 
prominent  literati  of  his  day,  was  personally 
a  notorious  coward.  Thomas  Moore,  who 
realized  more  than  thirty  thousand  pounds 
from  his  writings,  subjected  his  family  to 
actual  privation.  Newton,  the  illustrious 
mathematician  and  astronomer,  was  unable 
to  make  out  his  own  change  in  ordinary 
money  transactions.  Oliver  Goldsmith  set 
forth  the  joys  of  domestic  life  with  great 
fervor  and  simplicity,  and  yet  his  life  was 
passed  in  a  garret,  and  he  was  practically  a 
stranger  to  the  comforts  and  felicities  of 
home.  Richard  Steele  wrote  admirable 
essays  on  temperance — when  he  was  not 
drunk;  and  Doctor  Johnson  expatiated  with 
eloquence  and  truth  upon  politeness,  who 
himself  was  a  boor  and  a  glutton. 


IS  GENIUS   MADNESS?  51 

In  proceeding  to  account  for  the  foregoing 
melancholy  data,  Mr.  Sully  observes  that 
"  Keenness  of  sensibility,  both  to  physical 
and  mental  stimuli,  is  one  of  the  funda- 
mental attributes  of  the  original  mind.  The 
fine  nervous  organization,  tremulously  respon- 
sive to  every  touch,  constitutes  in  itself,  in 
this  all-too-imperfect  world  of  ours,  a  special 
dispensation  of  sorrow.  Hence  the  dark 
streak  of  melancholy  which  one  so  often 
detects  in  the  early  years  of  the  great  man." 
Parenthetically,  we  would  observe  that  all 
the  most  famous  racers  have  been  noted  for 
their  nervous  energy,  their  high  spirit  and 
courage — Flora  Temple,  Dexter,  Goldsmith 
Maid,  Rarus,  Jay-Eye-See,  and  Maud  S.,  for 
example.  May  not  the  same  fact  be  alleged 
with  equal  propriety  of  all  the  men  and 
women  who  have  made  remarkable  records 
in  the  race  of  life  2 

But  let  us  attend  farther  to  Mr.  Sully. 

"As  the  biography  of  the  man  of  genius 
often  tells  us,  he  is  apt  to  become  aware,  at 
a  painfully  early  date,  that  his  exceptional 
endowments,  and  the  ardent,  consuming 


52  A  STUDY  OF  GENIUS. 

impulses  which  belong  to  them,  collide  with 
the  utilities  and  purposes  of  ordinary  life. 
The  soul  intent  on  dreaming  its  secret 
dream  of  beauty  is  unfit  for  the  business 
which  makes  up  the  common  working-life 
of  plain,  prosaic  men.  Hence  the  profound 
solitude  of  so  many  of  earth's  great  ones, 
which  even  the  companionships  of  the  home 
have  not  sufficed  to  fill  up.  Such  isolation 
is  distinctly  unfavorable  to  mental  health. 
It  profoundly  affects  the  emotional  nature, 
breeding  melancholy,  suspicion  of  others, 
misanthropy,  and  other  unwholesome  prog- 
eny." 

He  remarks  farther:  ' '  If  the  rich  biograph- 
ical literature  of  modern  times  teaches  us 
anything,  it  is  that  original  production  is 
the  severest  strain  of  human  faculty,  the 
most  violent  and  extraordinary  form  of  cere- 
bral action.  At  the  moment  of  productive 
inspiration  the  whole  being  is  agitated  to  its 
depths,  and  the  latent  deposits  of  years  of 
experience  come  to  the  surface.  This  full 
spring- tide  of  imagination,  this  cerebral  tur- 
moil and  clash  of  currents,  makes  the  severest 


18   GENIUS   MADNESS?  53 

demand  on  the  controlling  and  guiding  forces 
of  volition. 

'  'Great  artistic  works  are  not  always  flashed 
into  the  world  by  this  swift,  electric  process. 
There  are  others  besides  Carlyle  to  whom 
spiritual  parturition  has  been  largely  an  expe- 
rience of  suffering,  the  pangs  being  but  rarely 
submerged  in  the  large,  joyous  consciousness 
that  a  new  idea  is  born  into  the  world." 

Of  the  two  sole  agencies  opposed  to  these 
destructive  tendencies — namely,  a  robust  con- 
stitution and  strength  of  will — he  writes: 
"But  such  robustness  of  bodily  health  seems 
by  no  means  the  rule.  The  number  of  puny 
and  ill-formed  men  who  have  achieved  mar- 
velous things  in  intellectual  production  is  a 
fact  which  has  often  been  remarked  on.  So 
common  an  accompaniment  of  great  intel- 
lectual exertion  is  defective  digestion,  that 
an  ingenious  writer  has  tried  to  show  that 
the  maladies  of  genius  have  their  main  source 
in  dyspepsia." 

In  speaking  of  the  second  resisting  agency, 
the  force  of  will,  he  continues:  "The  sense 
of  a  quasi  exterior  pressure  and  compulsion 

4 


54  A   STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

is  attested  by  more  than  one  child  of  genius. 
In  some  cases,  more  particularly,  perhaps, 
among  'tone-poets,'  we  find  this  mastery 
of  the  individual  mind  by  the  creative  im- 
pulse assuming  the  striking  form  of  a  sudden 
abstraction  of  the  thoughts  from  the  sur- 
roundings of  the  moment.  And,  through- 
out the  whole  of  the  creative  process, 
the  will,  though,  as  we  have  seen,  exercised 
in  a  peculiarly  severe  effort,  is  not  exercised 
fully  and  in  its  highest  form.  There  is 
no  deliberate  choice  of  activity  here.  The 
man  does  not  feel  free  to  stop  or  to  go 
on.  On  the  contrary,  the  will  is  in  this  case 
pressed  into  the  service  of  the  particular 
emotion  that  strives  for  utterance,  the  par- 
ticular artistic  impulse  that  is  irresistibly 
bent  on  self-realization. 

"Our  conclusion  is,  that  the  possession  of 
genius  carries  with  it  special  liabilities  of  the 
disintegrating  forces  which  environ  us  all. 
It  involves  a  state  of  delicate  equipoise,  of 
unstable  equilibrium,  in  the  psycho-physical 
organization.  Paradoxical  as  it  may  seem, 
one  may  venture  to  affirm  that  great  original 


IS   GENIUS   MADNESS?  55 

power  of  mind  is  incompatible  with  nice 
adjustment  to  surroundings,  and  so  with 
perfect  well-being.  The  genius  is  a  scout 
who  rides  out  well  in  advance  of  the  intel- 
lectual army,  and  who  by  this  very  advance 
and  isolation  from  the  main  body  is  exposed 
to  special  perils.  Thus  genius,  like  philan- 
thropy or  conscious  self-sacrifice  for  others, 
is  a  mode  of  variation  of  human  nature 
which,  though  unfavorable  to  the  conserva- 
tion of  the  individual,  aids  in  the  evolution 
of  the  species." 


CHAPTER  III. 

IS   GENIUS    MADNESS? — CONCLUDED. 

Negative  Views  of  Charles  Lamb,  Coleridge,  Dr.  William  O. 
Stevenson. — Opinions  of  Ancients  of  no  Scientific  Value. — 
All  Varieties  of  Mental  Disorder  More  Common  among 
Men  of  Meager  or  no  Abilities  than  among  Geniuses. 

The  view  presented  in  Chapter  II.  of  the 
intimate  relationship  existing  between  genius 
and  insanity,  sanctioned  though  it  is  by  the 
voice  of  antiquity,  and  by  influential  opin- 
ions of  almost  all  subsequent  ages,  has  its 
opposers,  strenuous  and  weighty,  if  not  nu- 
merous. Among  them  is  one  who,  in  view  of 
his  sister' s  well-known  insanity,  and  his  own 
pronounced  eccentricities,  might  very  natu- 
rally be  supposed  to  be  sensitive  on  the  sub- 
ject; we  mean  Charles  Lamb.  In  his  essay 
on  the  Sanity  of  True  Genius,  he  utters 
this  protest:  "  So  far  from  the  position  hold- 
ing true,  that  great  wit  (or  genius,  in  our 
modern  way  of  speaking)  has  a  necessary 
alliance  with  insanity,  the  greatest  wits,  on 

(57) 


58  A   STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

the  contrary,  will  ever  be  found  to  be  the 
sanest  writers.  It  is  impossible  for  the  mind 
to  conceive  of  a  mad  Shakespeare.  The 
greatness  of  wit,  by  which  the  poetic  talent 
is  here  chiefly  to  be  understood,  manifests 
itself  in  the  admirable  balance  of  all  the 
faculties." 

Coleridge,  too,  in  his  Biographia  Litera- 
ria,  bears  the  following  testimony:  "The 
men  of  the  greatest  genius,  as  far  as  we  can 
judge  from  their  own  works  or  from  the 
accounts  of  their  contemporaries,  appear  to 
have  been  of  calm  and  tranquil  temper  in  all 
that  related  to  themselves.  Through  all  the 
works  of  Chaucer  there  reigns  a  cheerful- 
ness, a  manly  hilarity,  which  makes  it  almost 
impossible  to  doubt  a  corresponding  habit  of 
feeling  in  the  author  himself.  Shakespeare's 
evenness  and  sweetness  of  temper  are  almost 
proverbial  in  his  own  age."  Speaking  of 
Spenser,  he  says:  "  Nowhere  do  we  find  the 
least  trace  of  irritability,  and  still  less  of 
quarrelsomeness  or  affected  contempt  of  his 
censurers."  "The  same  calmness,  and  even 
greater  self-possession,  may  be  affirmed  of 


IS   GENIUS   MADNESS? — CONCLUDED.       59 

Milton,  as  far  as  his  poems  and  poetic  char- 
acter are  concerned." 

What,  however,  we  regard  as  the  best 
defense  of  the  sanity  of  genius  is  an  article 
by  Dr.  William  G.  Stevenson,  in  the  Popular 
Science  Monthly  for  March,  1887,  and  which, 
indeed,  was  written  as  a  reply  to  the  article 
of  Mr.  Sully,  already  presented.  We  shall 
aim  to  reproduce  its  main  points  in  a  few 
brief  quotations. 

The  opinions  of  the  ancients  regarding 
the  psychological  nature  of  genius,  Doctor 
Stevenson  summarily  sets  aside,  upon  the 
ground  of  their  profound  ignorance  concern- 
ing the  essential  nature  of  mind.  His 
stand-point  is  that  of  modern  times,  and 
the  subject  is  treated  under  the  restriction 
of  modern  definitions. 

Allowing  the  various  examples  cited  by 
Mr.  Sully,  wherein  great  geniuses  have 
revealed  themselves  as  the  victims  of  illu- 
sions, hallucinations,  and  delusions,  and  as 
subjects  of  the  most  glaring  eccentricities, 
he  remarks:  "But  these  peculiarities  or 
eccentricities  are  not  essentially  morbid, 


60  A  STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

neither  do  they  give  affirmative  evidence  that 
genius  is  related  to  madness.  Such  peculiar- 
ities belong  to  all  orders  of  mind — the  hum- 
ble as  well  as  the  exalted — and  can  not, 
therefore,  have  an  exclusive  application." 

Concerning  the  exhibition  of  violent  pas- 
sions upon  the  part  of  men  of  genius,  he 
says:  "This  I  do  not  deny,  but  yet  affirm 
that  the  violent  passion  at  times  observed  in 
one  of  exalted  powers  of  mind  is  no  more 
evidence  in  favor  of  the  kinship  between 
these  powers  and  mental  disease,  than  is 
the  same  passion,  when  displayed  in  a  low 
and  vulgar  mind,  proof  that  stupidity  is  a 
congener  of  madness. 

"Because  Goethe,  Chateaubriand,  George 
Sand,  and  Johnson  have  said  that  at  times 
they  felt  an  impulse  to  commit  suicide; 
because  Beethoven,  Schumann,  and  Cowper, 
who  were  at  times  morbid,  really  made  the 
attempt;  and  Kleist,  Beneke,  and  Chatter- 
ton  succeeded  in  self-destruction — we  are 
not  justified  in  saying  that  the  impulse  or 
the  act  itself  came  because  genius  contains 
an  element  of  madness.  Hundreds  who  com- 


IS   GENIUS   MADNESS  ? — CONCLUDED.       61 

mit  suicide  every  year  do  not  possess  genius; 
why,  then,  make  it  the  responsible  agent  for 
the  few? 

"Since  genius  is  itself  exceedingly  rare, 
and  its  union  with  insanity  still  less  fre- 
quently found,  it  is  evident  that  suicide, 
although  occasionally  committed  by  those 
of  exalted  minds,  is  altogether  too  infre- 
quent among  them  to  justify  us  in  claiming 
it  as  evidence  in  behalf  of  the  insanity  of 
genius. 

"Nervous  and  mental  diseases  are  too 
common  among  all  classes  of  people  and 
orders  of  intelligence,  to  permit  us  to  think 
that  genius  is  the  special  object  of  their 
dominion. 

"That  genius  'has  its  roots  in  a  nervous 
organization  of  exceptional  delicacy,'  is  un- 
doubtedly true;  but  it  does  not  necessarily 
follow  that  the  liability  to  mental  disorder 
and  confusion  is  thereby  increased,  because 
this  delicacy  of  brain-structure  and  its  func- 
tions are  admirably  adjusted,  and  the  very 
perfection  of  the  mechanism  enables  it  to 
work  with  the  least  possible  friction  or  injury. 


62  A   STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

"In  conclusion,  I  hesitate  not  to  say  that 
the  most  illustrious  names  of  ancient  or 
modern  times — in  all  departments  of  human 
thought  or  activity — have  been,  with  but 
few  exceptions,  loyal  to  the  sovereign  rule  of 
sane  reason;  and  the  sweep  of  their  imagi- 
nations has  been  on  curves  which  rounded  in 
the  bright  empyrean  of  truth  and  beauty." 


CHAPTER  IV. 

IS   GENIUS    CHARACTER? 

Affirmative  Opinions  of  John  Burroughs  and  De  Quincey. — 
Negative  Opinion  of  Lowell. 

All  the  views  heretofore  had  of  genius 
have  treated  it  purely  as  an  intellectual 
force.  The  one  we  now  present  differs  from 
these  in  regarding  genius  in  the  light  of  a 
great  moral  power. 

John  Burroughs,  writing  on  the  subject, 
says:  "Indeed,  there  is  a  strict  moral  or 
ethical  dependence  of  the  capacity  to  con- 
ceive or  project  great  things,  upon  the  capac- 
ity to  be  or  to  do  them.  It  is  as  true  as  any 
law  of  hydraulics  or  statics,  that  the  work- 
manship of  a  man  can  never  rise  above  the 
level  of  his  character.  He  can  never  ade- 
quately say  or  do  anything  greater  than  he 
himself  is.  There  is  no  such  thing,  for 
instance,  as  deep  insight  into  the  mystery  of 
Creation,  without  integrity  and  simplicity 
of  character."  And  De  Quincey  affirms: 

(03) 


64  A   STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

"  Besides  its  relation  to  suffering  and  enjoy- 
ment, genius  always  implies  a  deeper  relation 
to  virtue  and  vice/' 

Diametrically  opposed  to  the  foregoing  is 
the  view  that  next  follows.  It  is  a  passage 
from  Lowell's  essay  on  Rousseau.  He  says: 
"Genius  is  not  a  question  of  character.  It 
may  be  sordid,  like  the  lamp  of  Aladdin,  in 
its  externals;  what  care  we,  while  the  touch  of 
it  builds  palaces  for  us,  makes  us  rich  as  only 
men  in  dream-land  are  rich,  and  lords  to  the 
utmost  bound  of  imagination?  So,  when 
people  talk  of  the  ungrateful  way  in  which 
the  world  treats  its  geniuses,  they  speak 
unwisely.  There  is  no  work  of  genius  which 
has  not  been  the  delight  of  mankind,  no 
word  of  genius  to  which  the  human  heart 
and  soul  have  not,  sooner  or  later,  responded. 
But  the  man  whom  the  genius  takes  posses- 
sion of  for  its  pen,  for  its  trowel,  for  its 
pencil,  for  its  chisel,  Mm  the  world  treats 
according  to  his  deserts." 


CHAPTER  Y. 

COMMENTS'  ON    FOREGOING   DEFINITIONS     OF 
GENIUS. 

Each  View  Partly  Right,  None  Wholly  So. — The  Common 
Element  in  All. — Genius  is  TTncommonness  of  Intellectual 
Endowment  in  the  Ascending  Scale. 

In  reviewing  the  various  definitions  of 
genius  just  presented,  we  are  very  forcibly 
reminded  of  the  old  story  of  the  chameleon. 
Each  beholder  viewing  the  reptile  under  dif- 
ferent circumstances  or  moods,  concludes  it 
is  of  an  entirely  different  color  from  that  re- 
ported by  any  other  beholder;  the  truth  being, 
of  course,  that  each  is  partly  right,  and  none 
wholly  so.  Again:  if  we  sum  up  the  defini- 
tions of  genius  presented,  we  shall  find  them 
to  be  nine  in  number,  which  corresponds  ex- 
actly to  the  number  of  leading  evangelical 
denominations  in  Christendom.  Each  of 
these  sects  views  Christianity  from  a  slightly 
different  stand-point  from  all  the  others,  and 
hence  truthfully  apprehends  a  certain  genu- 

6  (65) 


66  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

ine  phase  or  tint  of  it  which  escapes  the 
perception  of  all  the  rest;  but  it  can  not  be 
claimed  that  unto  any  one  of  them  has  been 
revealed  the  whole  spectrum  of  the  gospel  of 
Christ. 

Just  so,  we  take  it,  as  regards  the  foregoing 
definitions  of  genius:  each  is  true,  but  not 
the  whole  truth;  and  genius,  when  fully 
apprehended,  will  be  found  to  be  compounded 
of  the  essence  of  each  one  of  them.  Let  us 
briefly  criticise  each  of  these  definitions. 

It  is  unquestionably  true  that  there  can  be 
no  genius  where  there  is  no  originality. 
This,  properly  conceived,  is  a  very  compre- 
hensive quality  of  mind.  It  involves  not 
only  the  power  to  perceive  things  first,  but 
also  the  faculty  for  discovering  new  phases  or 
relations  of  those  same  things,  or  of  other 
familiar  ones.  Franklin  was  a  real  discov- 
erer when  he  drew  lightning  from  the  clouds; 
but  not  any  more  original  in  mind  than  Voltai, 
or  Morse,  or  Locke,  or  Edison,  or  any  other 
of  the  numerous  inventors  who  have,  since 
his  day,  successfully  applied  that  same  fiery 
fluid  to  scientific  and  mechanical  ends.  The 


COMMENTS  ON   FOREGOING.  «7 

degree  of  originality  which  may  be  claimed 
for  the  Darwins,  for  Kant,  Laplace,  and 
Lamarck,  as  expositors  of  the  great  physical 
law  of  evolution,  is  but  little,  if  any,  supe- 
rior to  that  which  belongs  to  Spencer,  who 
assumes  to  have  demonstrated  the  prevalence 
of  the  same  law  in  the  structure  of  the  vari- 
ous governmental,  social,  moral,  and  relig- 
ious institutions  of  mankind. 

We  confess  our  inability  to  see  any  real 
difference  between  originality  and  anticipa- 
tion, as  definitions  of  genius.  To  anticipate 
a  thing  is  simply  to  see  it,  or  know  about  it, 
or  to  do  it,  before  any  other  person  has  such 
knowledge  or  performs  such  action.  But 
what  is  this,  if  not  originality — the  being 
first  on  a  scene,  the  being  first  in  utterance, 
the  being  first  in  exploit?  Can  one  conceive 
of  an  original  thought,  or  expression,  or 
action  that  must  not  have  anticipated  every 
other  similar  thought,  or  expression,  or 
action?  To  recur  to  the  illustration  of  antici- 
pation given  by  Macaulay  and  Alison,  the 
beholder  on  the  mountain-top,  as  compared 
with  his  fellow  in  the  valley,  anticipates  the 


68  A   STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

rising  of  the  sun  in  no  other  sense  than  that 
he  is  the  first  or  original  spectator  of  it,  and 
vice  versa.  The  two  terms,  then,  originality 
and  anticipation,  strike  us  as  being  simply 
synonymous — mere  interchangeables. 

And,  is  either  of  them  entirely  satisfactory 
as  a  definition  of  genius?  What  we  have 
already  observed  with  regard  to  originality 
may  be  applied  with  equal  propriety  to 
anticipation — namely,  that  it  is  an  essential 
factor  of  every  genius.  But  is  either  origi- 
nality or  anticipation  genius  itself  ?  May  we 
not  conceive  of  them  as  existing  in  an  indi- 
vidual— nay,  can  we  not  cite  individuals  in 
whom  they  have  existed,  for  whom  it  can  not 
be  claimed  that  they  were  geniuses?  We 
think  so.  There  is  another  element  which 
must  enter  into  this  originality  or  antici- 
pation in  order  to  constitute  it  real  genius, 
and  that  is  the  element  of  size.  In  other 
words,  the  originality  must  be  pronounced, 
intense,  surprising,  in  order  to  win  for  itself 
the  distinction  of  being  classed  as  genius. 
Each  person  is,  in  one  or  more  points,  differ- 
ent from  his  fellows.  This,  however,  is  only 


COMMENTS   ON    FOREGOING.  69 

individuality,  or  idiosyncrasy — a  vulgar  and 
insignificant  thing  indeed,  compared  with 
genius.  It  is  only  when  this  individual 
endowment  displays  a  largeness  or  an  inten- 
sity that  is  surpassing,  that  we  are  willing  to 
recognize  it  as  akin  to  genius,  if  not  genius 
itself. 

Is  genius  breadth?  Yes,  if  it  be  a  phe- 
nomenally broad  and  not  shallow  breadth. 
And  genius  of  this  type  is,  we  apprehend, 
the  rarest  of  all.  Just  as  in  every  army 
there  are  thousands  of  privates,  hundreds 
of  captains,  and  scores  of  brigade  and  divis- 
ion commanders  for  everj'  general-in-chief, 
so  in  the  divers  bodies  of  intellectual  work- 
ers there  are  multitudes  of  efficient  special- 
ists, not  a  few  of  whom  may  also  be  allowed 
to  be  geniuses,  for  every  Plato,  or  Bacon,  or 
Shakespeare,  or  Alexander  Hamilton — men 
whose  cosmic  cast  of  mind  enables  them  to 
comprehend,  harmonize,  and  unify  whole 
systems  of  seemingly  conflicting  interests. 
Such  men  have  nothing  to  do  with  details; 
they  are  not  absorbingly  interested  in  any 
one  department  of  thought,  but,  ranging 

6 


70  A   STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

over  all  activities  with  impartiality  and 
familiarity,  and  gathering  into  hand  the 
essential  threads  of  each,  they  therefrom 
weave  the  large  and  enduring  patterns  of 
family,  state,  religion,  philosophy,  and  liter- 
ature. Laws  and  principles  are  the  mate- 
rials with  which  they  deal,  and  systems  are 
their  fabrics.  However  intrinsically  inter- 
esting and  important  a  single  thing,  they 
value  it  chiefly,  if  not  solely,  for  its  relative 
worth  and  influence.  They  apprehend  things, 
not  as  integers,  but  as  factors;  and  men,  not 
as  individuals,  but  as  communities.  It  is 
the  entire  landscape  that  they  sweep  at  a 
glance,  and  not  a  single  feature  of  it — the 
whole,  rather  than  any  part.  They  are  the 
architects  of  every  grand  enterprise,  and  not 
its  artisans — the  modelers  of  complete  stat- 
ues, and  not  the  expert  chiselers  of  parts. 

Very  closely  related  to,  if  not  identical 
with,  breadth,  is  the  constructiveness  defined 
as  genius — the  power  to  combine,  to  synthe- 
size, the  results  of  others'  labors,  after  a  fash- 
ion extraordinarily  novel  or  large.  For  is  it 
not  plain  that,  before  there  can  be  any  intel- 


COMMENTS   ON   FOREGOING.  71 

ligent  combination  or  construction,  there 
must  first  be  formed  in  the  mind  the  scheme, 
or  design,  in  conformity  with  which  the  ar- 
rangement of  materials  must  proceed;!  And 
is  it  not  farther  apparent  that,  in  order  that 
such  scheme  or  design  may  lay  any  claim  to 
being  a  work  of  genius,  it  must  discover 
either  a  superior  newness  or  an  unusual 
largeness?  The  very  idea  of  being  a  con- 
structor presupposes  the  power  to  grasp  and 
manipulate  constituent  parts;  and  the  greater 
the  number  of  these  parts,  the  ampler  must 
be  the  hand  or  the  eye  that  would  direct 
their  organization.  The  putter- together  of  a 
mosaic  must  possess  a  breadth  of  view  equal 
to  the  combined  areas  of  vision  of  each 
maker  of  a  bit  ot  the  composite,  and  the 
planner  of  a  military  campaign  must  be  able 
to  focalize  in  himself  the  movements  of  entire 
divisions  of  troops  as  if  they  were  single  com- 
panies or  files.  This  is  constructiveness,  but 
it  is  no  less  breadth;  and  either  manifested 
in  an  extraordinary  degree  is  genius. 

Is  concentration  genius?    In  no  sense  what- 
ever.   The  most  remarkable  exhibition  to  be 


72  A    STUDY    OF  GENIUS. 

had  of  concentration  of  mind  is  in  the  case 
of  monomaniacs;  and  we  know  of  no  genius 
who  was  such  by  virtue  of  any  mania  he 
may  have  contracted.  At  the  same  time,  we 
believe  there  can  be  no  genius  without  con- 
centration of  mind;  but  concentration  is 
simply  one  of  the  many  conditions  of  genius, 
and  not  the  thing  itself. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  patience.  Indis- 
pensable as  it  undoubtedly  is  for  bringing 
all  the  fruits  of  genius  to  maturity,  it  can 
not  cause  a  single  stalk  of  genius  to  spring 
up,  or  a  single  bud,  leaf,  or  fruit  of  that  rare 
plant  to  grow,  unless  there  first  be,  at  the 
root  of  the  whole,  the  genuine  seed  of  genius. 
Patience  may  be  allowed  to  be  the  atmos- 
phere of  genius;  but  it  is  quite  as  surely 
the  atmosphere  also  of  mediocrity,  and  even 
of  inferiority;  the  essential  difference  be- 
tween the  three  inhering  exclusively  in  their 
respective  germs. 

Then  as  to  genius  being  "'common  sense 
working  at  a  high  level,-'  why,  the  very 
phrase  is  a  flat  contradiction  of  terms.  Com- 
mon sense  and  a  high  level — you  might  as 


COMMENTS   ON   FOREGOING.  73 

well  associate  common  stock  and  a  rare 
breed,  or  common  coal  and  a  diamond. 
Common  sense,  when  it  rises  above  the  com- 
mon level,  ceases  to  be  common  sense,  and 
becomes  uncommon  sense — the  level  in  this 
case  making  as  much  difference  in  the  thing 
itself  as  it  does  in  the  case  of  the  atmosphere, 
or  water,  or  fauna,  or  flora. 

But  may  it  not  be  possible  that  we  are 
misinterpreting  the  term  common  sense? 
Let  us  see.  Take  all  the  synonyms  of  com- 
mon furnished  by  the  standard  dictionary, 
and  put  each  in  turn  in  place  of  the  word 
itself,  in  the  compound  under  consideration, 
and  see  if  there  is  any  meaning  emitted  differ- 
ent from  the  one  already  attributed.  Here 
is  the  list:  General  sense,  public  sense,  pop- 
ular sense,  national  sense,  universal  sense, 
frequent  sense,  ordinary  sense,  customary 
sense,  usual  sense,  familiar  sense,  habitual 
sense,  vulgar  sense,  mean  sense,  trite  sense, 
stale  sense,  threadbare  sense,  commonplace 
sense.  Does  any  one  of  these  qualifiers 
show  that  the  sense  considered  is  other  than 
that  possessed  by  a  large  number — nay,  the 


74  A  STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

great  mass  of  mankind?  Certainly  not. 
Then,  such  being  the  case,  common  sense 
can  not  by  any  possibility  rise  above  the 
normal  level  of  those  who  possess  it — the 
mass.  The  sense  which  does  so  rise  and 
attain  to  a  high  level,  is  in  no  element  of  its 
nature  common,  but,  on  the  contrary,  is 
essentially  and  completely  uncommon,  or 
extraordinary.  Were  common  sense,  accord- 
ing to  the  literal  signification  of  the  term, 
genius,  then  unquestionably  would  the  lat- 
ter be  a  much  more  generally  diffused 
endowment  than  anyone  has  heretofore  sup- 
posed, or  existing  evidences  would  warrant 
us  in  believing  it  to  be. 

Is  it  not  possible,  however,  that  by  com- 
mon sense  our  definer  would  have  us  to 
understand  a  knowledge  of  human  nature? 
for  such  it  is  not  unfrequently  understood 
to  mean.  In  this  event,  we  should  feel  very 
much  inclined  to  accept  his  definition;  for 
anything  approaching  a  clear  and  full  insight 
into  human  nature  is  an  individual  gift  of  so 
rare  an  occurrence,  that  he  who  possesses  it 
may  well  be  reckoned  a  genius.  But  if  this 


COMMENTS    ON   FOREGOING.  75 

be  our  definer's  meaning,  what  a  flagrant 
misnomer  of  genius  is  common  sense! 

Again:  Is  genius  character?  In  the  defini- 
tions presented,  we  have  both  an  affirmative 
and  a  negative  reply.  We  think  the  latter 
much  the  more  tenable  of  the  two.  A  single 
well-defined  illustration  of  the  truth  that 
intellectual  greatness  can  co-exist  with  moral 
littleness,  is  proof  conclusive  that  genius 
and  character  are  not  necessarily  correla- 
tives. But  such  illustrations  are  numerous; 
indeed,  we  fear  it  Avould  not  be  impossible  to 
show  that  a  large  majority  of  the  most  emi- 
nent geniuses  of  the  world  have  been  men 
whose  lives  proved  an  unworthy  setting  to 
their  brilliant  gems  of  mind.  And  what  is 
saddest  about  the  matter  is,  that  this  want  of 
accord  between  mental  endowment  and  moral 
integrity  seems  to  obtain  particularly  in  those 
geniuses  whose  special  mission  it  is  to  pre- 
side over  and  inspire  the  sentiments  and  to 
inform  the  sesthetical  tastes  of  mankind— 
the  poets,  the  musicians,  and  the  artists  of 
the  human  race.  It  must,  therefore,  be  con- 
ceded that  it  is  possible  for  the  human  mind 


76  A   STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

to  entertain  the  justest,  purest,  sweetest,  and 
most  exalted  conceptions  of  art  and  of  con- 
duct, and  also  to  give  them  the  most  fitting 
and  captivating  expression,  at  the  same  time 
that  the  heart  is  quite  indifferent  to  their 
noble  influence,  and  the  life  quite  devoid  of 
their  divine  companionship.  There  is  nothing 
necessarily  incompatible  between  genius  and 
rectitude;  but  it  is  quite  as  true  that  either 
of  these  may  exist  in  an  individual  wholly 
independent  of  the  other.  There  can  be  no 
question  but  that  the  giant  mind  and  the 
saintly  heart  mutually  befit  and  aggrandize 
each  other,  and  that  when  found  united 
in  the  same  person,  they  exalt  him  to  the 
topmost  station  of  human  attainment;  but 
quite  as  sure  is  it  that,  in  the  cases  of  a 
majority  of  the  world's  greatest  geniuses,  no 
such  felicitous  conjunction  has  existed.  The 
most  gigantic  and  gorgeous  of  flowers — the 
Rafflesia  Arnoldi — has  the  odor  of  putrid 
meat. 

Lastly:  Is  genius  madness?  As  has  already 
been  shown,  extraordinary  gifts  of  mind 
have  frequently  been  associated  with  one  or 


COMMENTS   ON   FOREGOING.  77 

other  form  of  mental  or  nervous  derange- 
ment; but  this,  in  our  opinion,  no  more 
proves  that  the  two  are  identical,  or  that 
they  are  necessarily  concomitants,  than  does 
the  presence  of  the  worm  in  the  bark  of  the 
gigantea  sequoia  prove  that  the  monarch  of 
the  Californian  forest  and  its  contemptible 
parasite  are  one  and  the  same  thing.  If  it 
were  indeed  true  that  madness  and  genius 
are  identical,  then  might  we  expect  to  find 
the  greatest  living  geniuses  within  the  walls 
of  lunatic  asylums.  If  genius  and  madness 
are  of  one  substance,  then  must  it  follow 
that  the  greater  the  madness,  the  greater  the 
genius,  and  the  reverse.  A  man  may  become 
mad  by  reason  of  the  too  great  pressure  of 
his  mind  upon  some  weak  part  of  his  phys- 
ical organism,  but  all  the  concentrated  mad- 
ness of  the  race,  or  any  choice  part  of  it, 
could  never  generate  a  genius.  Madness  is 
simply  an  occasional,  an  incidental  attendant 
of  genius,  and  is  no  more  genius  than  is 
the  grotesque  shadow  of  an  object  the 
object  itself.  Madness  is  one  of  the  many 
manifestations  that  genius  presents  —  an 


78  A   STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

ugly  one,  no  doubt — and  is  no  more  the 
whole  of  genius  than  is  a  single  cat-call 
the  varied  carol  of  the  mocking-bird.  Mad- 
ness is  a  lapse  or  interregnum  of  genius,  and 
is  as  distinct  from  it  as  is  the  incidental 
stumble  of  a  horse  from  his  habitual  gait. 
If  madness  be  indissolubly  conjoined  with 
genius,  it  is  only  as  nethermost  antipode  or 
hindmost  extreme ;  and  if  the  two  rule 
jointly,  then  madness  enacts  the  infernal 
demon  to  the  supernal  divinity  of  genius. 

But,  as  we  have  already  shown  in  our  quo- 
tation from  Doctor  Stevenson's  reply  to  Mr. 
Sully,  the  various  manifestations  of  madness 
are,  first,  attendants  not  only  of  genius,  but 
also  of  every  lesser  degree  of  mental  endow- 
ment ;  and,  secondly,  they  are  a  more  fre- 
quent accompaniment  of  inferior  orders  of 
intellect  than  of  superior  ones — the  two  facts 
proving  conclusively  that  there  is  no  natural 
or  necessary  connection  between  genius  and 
any  species  of  mental  unsoundness. 
CONCLUSION. 

However  unlike  or  antagonistic  the  forego- 
ing definitions  of  genius  may  be,  or  may  seem 


CONCLUSION.  70 

to  be,  no  great  shrewdness  is  required  to 
detect  a  common  element  running  through 
all — and  that  is  the  element  of  unc&mmon- 
ness. 

Originality,  or  its  equivalent  anticipation, 
can  not  claim  to  be  genius,  unless  it  exist 
upon  an  uncommonly  large  scale.  Breadth 
may  be  genius  only  as  it  is  extraordina- 
rily generous,  conspicuously  comprehensive. 
And  concentration  or  constructiveness,  if 
they  would  escape  the  suspicion  of  being 
mere  talents,  must  take  on  either  an  unu- 
sual intensity  or  an  astonishing  range.  We 
see,  then,  that  uncommonness  is  the  one 
necessary  quality  which  enters  into  every 
conception  of  genius.  What  objection,  then, 
can  there  be  to  the  selection  of  this  quality 
as  the  most  expressive  definition  of  genius 
itself,  seeing  it  is  ample  enough  to  embrace 
any  or  all  of  the  definitions  presented,  and 
that  it  is  the  one  element  in  each  which  re- 
fuses to  disappear  under  analysis  3 

As  the  outcome,  then,  of  our  inquiry  into 
the  real  meaning  of  genius,  we  would  vent- 
ure to  assert  that  it  is  uncommonness  of 


80  A   STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

intellectual  endowment,  whether  as  regards 
either  the  kind  or  the  scope  of  its  activity. 
Uncommonness  of  endowment  in  kind  origi- 
nates the  specialist,  while  uncommonness  of 
endowment  in  scope  originates  the  gener- 
alizer  or  philosopher — and  both,  by  virtue 
of  their  uncommonness,  and  by  virtue  of 
that  alone,  are  geniuses.  Of  course,  this 
uncommonness  must  be  manifested  in  the 
ascending  and  not  the  descending  scale  of 
human  endowments. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

PRECOCITY. 

Is  Genius  Characterized  by  Precocity  ?  The  Affirmative  View 
Supported  by  Seventy-four  Eminent  Examples. — The  Neg- 
ative View  Favored  by  about  Fifty  Equally  Weighty  Ex- 
amples.— Tabular  Exhibit  of  tlie  Merits  of  the  Question, 
Derived  from  Investigation  of  the  Lives  of  Three  Hundred 
of  the  Foremost  Geniuses  of  the  World. — Conclusion. 

Just  as  a  day  of  memorable  beauty  is,  as  a 
rule,  heralded  to  the  world  by  a  lightsome- 
visaged  and  blushing-cheeked  aurora,  so  are 
we  prone  to  think  the  advent  of  a  genius 
must  be  prophesied  to  mankind  in  the  daz- 
zling parts  of  some  child.  And  as  fabled 
Apollo,  soon  as  he  had  tasted  of  the  Olym- 
pian nectar  and  ambrosia,  shook  off  his 
swaddling-bands,  and,  seizing  a  lyre,  declared 
himself  ready  for  his  divine  mission,  so 
would  we  have  genius  exhibit  its  preter- 
natural characteristics  close  upon  the  heels 
of  infancy. 

Of  course,  it  is  not  believed  that  every 
child  manifesting  precocious  traits  will  cer- 
tainly develop  into  a  genius;  nevertheless 

6  (8U 


82  A    STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

are  we  wont  to  make  it  hold  good  that 
geniuses  almost  universally  bud  forth  in 
children  of  transcendent  brilliance. 

And  here  are  some  data  that  undoubtedly 
warrant  this  view: 

Aristophanes,  the  great  comic  poet  of 
Greece,  gained  his  first  prize  at  nineteen 
years  of  age.  Cowley  received  the  applause 
of  the  great  at  eleven,  Pope  at  twelve,  and 
Milton  at  sixteen.  Byron's  general  informa- 
tion as  a  boy  was  unusually  large  and  varied, 
and  the  list  of  works,  in  divers  departments 
of  literature,  which  he  had  perused  before 
his  fifteenth  year,  is  something  astonishing. 
His  first  known  poetical  effusion  was  penned 
at  twelve,  and  at  eighteen  he  published  his 
first  volume  of  poems.  Burns  was  a  poet  at 
sixteen,  his  first  recorded  poem  having  been 
written  in  memory  of  a  fair  girl  companion 
of  the  harvest-field,  from  whose  hands  he 
was  wont  to  remove  the  nettle-stings  and 
thistles.  Henry  Kirke  White  was  but  sev- 
enteen when  his  first  volume  of  poems  was 
given  to  the  public;  Schiller  published  a 
poem  on  Moses  when  only  fourteen;  Klop- 


PRECOCITY.  83 

stock  began  his  "Messiah"  at  seventeen; 
at  eighteen  Tasso  wrote  "Rinaldo;"  Cal- 
deron,  the  famous  Spanish  dramatist,  penned 
his  first  play  at  fourteen;  Goethe  composed 
dialogues  when  only  six  or  seven;  Alfred  de 
Muset  wrote  poems  at  fourteen;  Victor  Hugo, 
called  the  "enfant  sublime,"  versified  when 
a  school-boy,  and  at  sixteen  produced  work 
of  permanent  value;  Beaumont  composed 
tragedies  at  twelve;  Coleridge  revealed  his 
poetic  genius  at  sixteen;  Mrs.  Browning 
began  writing  poetry  at  eight,  and  produced 
an  epic  at  twelve;  and  Mrs.  Hemans  pub- 
lished a  volume  of  poems  at  fourteen. 

Leonardo  Da  Vinci,  the  most  comprehen- 
sive and  versatile  of  all  the  great  Italian 
masters  of  art,  when  but  a  small  boy,  puzzled 
his  teachers  by  his  original  remarks  and 
searching  inquiries.  In  his  first  effort  at 
drawing  he  surpassed  in  grace  and  natural- 
ness of  outline  the  models  of  his  experienced 
instructor.  When  Michael  Angelo  was 
placed  at  a  grammar  school,  preparatory  to 
his  entering  on  one  of  the  learned  profes- 
sions, he  spent  his  time  chiefly  in  drawing. 


84  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

much  to  his  father's  disgust.  Apprenticed 
to  an  eminent  artist,  his  progress  was  so 
rapid  as  to  excite  the  latter*  s  jealousy,  and 
to  compel  the  confession  that  his  pupil  had 
no  farther  need  of  him.  Raphael,  before  he 
was  sixteen,  copied  the  illustrious  Perugi- 
no's  designs  so  perfectly,  that  his  copies 
were  frequently  mistaken  for  the  originals; 
indeed,  some  pronounced  them  superior  in 
the  moral  earnestness  and  ecstatic  vision 
with  which  he  imbued  them.  Giotto,  the 
earliest  of  the  artist  giants  of  mediaeval  Italy, 
took  his  first  lessons  directly  from  nature, 
when  a  shepherd  lad,  attending  his  father's 
flock.  Murillo  displayed  artistic  talent 
when  a  mere  child,  covering  the  walls  of 
his  house  with  drawings,  and  painting  pict- 
ures which  he  sold  at  a  neighboring  fair. 
Canova  carved  a  lion  with  astonishing  fidel- 
ity at  twelve,  and  Thorwaldsen  at  eleven  had 
engaged  in  a  systematic  study  of  art.  Land- 
seer  could  draw  well  at  five,  and  admirably 
at  eight.  Gainsborough  became  a  painter  at 
twelve,  and  Turner  exhibited  creditable  work 
at  fifteen.  Sir  Christopher  Wren  at  the  age 


PRECOCITY.  8f> 

of  thirteen  had  invented  an  astronomical 
apparatus,  a  pneumatic  engine,  and  several 
curious  if  not  useful  instruments. 

At  the  age  of  nine  years,  Handel  composed 
motets  and  other  pieces  which  were  sung  in 
the  cathedral;  and  when  only  two  years 
older,  he  provoked  the  mingled  applause 
and  envy  of  the  foremost  composer  and 
organist  of  Berlin  by  his  astonishing  instru- 
mentation. When  but  a  choir-boy  at  St. 
Stephen's,  Haydn  composed  a  mass,  and  he 
was  only  twenty  years  old  when  he  wrote  his 
first  opera. 

Mozart,  when  barely  able  to  reach  up  to 
the  key-board  of  the  piano,  would  pick  out 
thirds  and  other  chords  while  his  older  sister 
was  taking  her  lesson,  and  began  taking- 
lessons  himself  when  only  four  years  old. 
At  this  early  age,  too,  he  began  to  compose, 
and  when  six  actually  wrote  a  concerto  for 
the  clavier.  The  next  two  years  he  spent, 
in  company  with  his  father  and  sister,  visit- 
ing the  royal  families  at  Vienna,  Paris,  Ver- 
sailles, London,  and  Holland,  and  exhibiting 

before    them    and    the    best    musicians    of 
a 


86  A   STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

Europe  his  marvelous  skill,  both  as  per- 
former upon  and  composer  for  the  clavier, 
the  violin,  and  more  especially  the  organ. 
At  nine  he  wrote  six  sonatas  for  violin, 
viola,  cello,  horn,  oboe,  bassoon,  and  harp- 
sichord, and  also  a  small  oratorio;  and  at 
twelve,  in  presence  of  the  whole  imperial 
family  of  Austria,  he  wielded  the  conduct- 
or's baton  at  the  performance  of  a  mass 
composed  by  himself  for  the  consecration  of 
a  new  church. 

Herr  Neefe,  a  distinguished  musician  of 
his  day,  wrote  of  Beethoven  when  he  was 
but  eleven  years  of  age:  "He  plays  the 
piano  with  wonderful  execution,  and  reads 
very  well  at  sight — in  short,  he  plays  almost 
the  whole  of  Sebastian  Bach's  'Wohltem- 
perte  Clavier.' '  When,  at  seventeen  years 
of  age,  he  extemporized  upon  a  theme  just 
then  laid  before  him,  Mozart  ecstatically 
exclaimed  to  the  assembled  critics:  "Take 
care  of  this  youth;  some  day  he  will  make  a 
stir  in  the  world."  Weber  was  still  in  his 
teens  when  he  wrote  two  comic  operas,  and 
was  only  eighteen  when  he  was  made  con- 


PRECOCITY.  87 

ductor  of  the  Breslau  Opera  House.  Ros- 
sini began  to  compose  as  early  as  sixteen, 
and  wrote  his  celebrated  opera  "Tancredi" 
when  he  was  scarcely  twenty-one.  When 
only  seven  years  of  age,  Schubert,  without 
having  had  any  formal  instruction,  played 
surprisingly  well  upon  the  harpsichord,  and 
between  his  eleventh  and  sixteenth  years, 
while  serving  as  a  choir-boy,  composed  a 
symphony  in  D  major,  a  cantata,  a  part  of 
an  opera,  several  string  quartets  and  fanta- 
sias, an  octet  for  wind  instruments,  and  quite 
a  number  of  songs — among  them,  the  well- 
known  "  Hagar's  Lament."  Mendelssohn, 
before  he  was  ten  years  of  age,  had  gone 
through  a  complete  course  of  musical  in- 
struction. When  only  twelve,  he  had  com- 
posed his  first  symphony,  that  in  C  minor, 
and  two  or  three  one-act  operas;  and  about 
the  same  time,  when  attending  a  meeting  of 
the  Cecilia  Society  at  Frankfort,  he  extem- 
porized upon  one  of  Bach's  motets  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  thrill  with  wonder  and  admira- 
tion the  experienced  musicians  there  assem- 
bled. 


88  A   STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

Galileo  manifested  his  scientific  bias  while 
still  a  youth.  Sir  Isaac  Newton  had  not  yet 
entered  his  teens  when  he  had  exhibited 
extraordinary  skill  as  a  mechanical  inventor 
— his  windmill,  water-clock,  and  flying  kites 
being  well-known  illustrations  of  his  natural 
deftness.  James  Watt,  it  is  said,  was  only 
six  years  old  when  he  was  caught  solving  a 
geometrical  problem  upon  the  hearth  with  a 
piece  of  chalk;  at  fourteen  he  constructed  an 
electrical  machine;  and  he  was  still  a  lad 
when  he  made  his  first  discoveries  with  ref- 
erence to  steam.  At  four  years  of  age 
Cuvier  could  read  fluently;  at  six  was  an 
interested  inquirer  into  physical  phenomena; 
at  thirteen  had  read  and  all  but  memorized 
Buffon,  copying  all  the  plates  in  water-col- 
ors, and  at  twenty-six  was  a  professor. 
Laplace  was  a  mathematical  teacher  when 
still  a  boy;  Lagrange  was  a  professor  at 
eighteen;  St.  Hilaire  at  twenty-one;  Kepler, 
Linnaeus,  and  Davy  at  twenty-three;  Coper- 
nicus at  twenty-seven,  and  Tycho  Brahe  at 
twenty-eight.  Leibnitz  received  his  degree 
of  M.  A.  at  fifteen,  and  that  of  LL.  D.  at 


PRECOCITY.  89 

nineteen.  Abelard  astonished  Paris,  and, 
indeed,  all  Europe,  with  his  dialectics  at 
twenty.  Berkeley  arrived  at  his  notion  of 
idealism  when  a  youth  of  eighteen  at  col- 
lege, and  enunciated  his  "New  Theory  of 
Vision  "  at  twenty-four.  Schelling  had 
written  three  philosophical  works  before  he 
was  twenty. 

Charles  Dickens,  when  but  a  small  boy, 
became  famous  among  his  playmates  as  the 
.writer  of  a  tragedy  called  "Misnar,"  and 
also  as  the  relater  of  impromptu  stories. 
Guizot,  the  eminent  French  statesman  and 
historian,  has  been  called  "  a  child  who  had 
no  childhood."  At  eleven  he  could  read 
in  the  originals  the  works  of  Thucydides, 
Demosthenes,  Cicero,  Tacitus,  Dante,  Alfieri, 
Schiller,  Goethe,  Gibbon,  and  Shakespeare. 
And  at  the  same  early  period  his  mind  was 
particularly  fond  of  and  devoted  to  histor- 
ical and  philosophical  subjects.  Grotius 
wrote  good  Latin  verses  at  nine,  and  at 
seventeen  did  work  of  a  high  scholarly  char- 
acter. Porson  at  nine  could  extract  the 
cube  root  of  a  number  mentally,  and  at 


00  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

fifteen  could  repeat  the  whole  of  Horace, 
Virgil,  and  many  parts  of  other  classical 
authors.  Macaulay  indicated  his  historical 
bias  at  eight,  at  which  time  also  he  had 
written  a  romance  and  several  poems. 
Thirlwall  was  taught  Latin  at  three,  and 
could  read  Greek  at  four  with  great  fluency. 
Hannibal  as  a  boy  accompanied  his  illus- 
trious father  in  his  military  expeditions  to 
Spain,  and  after  the  latter' s  death,  though 
still  very  young,  won  the  admiration  of  the 
army  by  his  extraordinary  courage  and 
skill.  Napoleon  Bonaparte  evinced  his  love 
for  military  affairs  at  a  very  early  age,  and 
the  unusual  aptitude  he  exhibited  at  the 
military  school  at  Brienne  elicited  from  one 
of  his  professors  the  remark,  "  Keep  an  eye 
on  young  Bonaparte,  and  promote  him  as 
fast  as  possible,  for  if  you  do  not,  he  will 
make  a  way  for  himself."  Scipio  had 
achieved  his  highest  distinction  before  he 
was  thirty.  At  the  same  age  Charlemagne 
was  master  of  Germany  and  France.  Joan 
of  Arc  was  but  eighteen  when  she  had 
attained  the  name  of,  in  some  respects,  the 


PRECOCITY.  91 

most  marvelous  conqueror  the  world  has  ever 
seen.  In  boyhood  Alexander  the  Great  man- 
ifested extraordinary  physical  prowess  in 
training  Bucephalus;  at  sixteen  he  was  en- 
trusted with  the  regency  of  Macedonia  during 
his  father's  temporary  absence;  at  eighteen 
he  defeated  the  Theban  Sacred  Band  at 
Chaeroneia;  and  was  only  twenty  when,  upon 
Philip's  death,  he  assumed  the  head  of 
government,  and  inaugurated  his  career  as 
the  greatest  of  conquerors.  Peter  the  Great 
triumphed  over  the  combined  factions  of  his 
older  brother  and  sister,  and  became  sole 
Czar  of  Muscovy,  at  seventeen. 

Did  space  permit,  or  the  necessities  of  the 
case  warrant  them,  the  biographies  of  such 
illustrious  men  as  Archimedes,  Sir  David 
Brewster,  Julius  Caesar,  Nelson,  Bossuet, 
Rembrandt,  Salvator  Rosa,  Albert  Durer, 
Correggio,  Guido,  Shelley,  Keats,  and  many 
others  might  be  made  to  yield  additional 
data  in  confirmation  of  the  apparent  rule 
that  the  normal  blossom  of  genius  is  pre- 
cocity. 

But  against  this  rule,  if  such  it  be  allowed 


92  A  STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

to  be,  there  may  be  arrayed  a  very  for- 
midable number  of  significant  exceptions- 
geniuses  whose  consummate  flower  appeared 
—as  in  the  case  of  the  century-plant — just 
before,  and  in  some  instances  would  seem  to 
have  been  indicative  of,  their  dissolution. 
We  shall  cite  a  few  of  them. 

The  world-renowned  Cervantes,  though 
furnished  with  the  education  usual  to  gen- 
tlemen of  his  time,  developed  no  special  brill- 
iance as  a  student,  and  was  fifty-eight  years 
of  age  when  the  first  part  of  Don  Quixote 
was  given  to  the  public.  Bunyan  gave  the 
world  no  evidence  whatever  of  possessing 
a  unique  faculty  before  he  had  produced 
"Pilgrim's  Progress,"  at  which  time  he 
was  probably  forty  years  of  age.  Virgil 
was  already  thirty  years  old  when  his  first 
poetic  work  of  any  value  appeared — the 
"Bucolics;"  while  his  ^Eneid  was  written 
between  his  forty-third  and  fiftieth  years. 
JEschylus,  the  founder  of  the  drama,  won 
his  first  prize  at  forty-one.  Euripides,  the 
tragic  Greek  poet,  achieved  a  like  distinc- 
tion at  thirty-nine.  Dante  was  thirty-five 


PRECOCITY.  93 

when  he  began  the  composition  of  his 
"Divina  Commedia."  One  of  the  pioneers 
of  French  poetry,  Peter  Rusard,  did  not 
discover  his  poetic  faculty  much  before  his 
fiftieth  year.  Chaucer's  most  meritorious 
as  well  as  most  famous  poems,  the  "Can- 
terbury Tales,"  were  the  product  of  his  old 
age.  Wordsworth  did  not  attain  renown 
until  after  forty. 

In  the  thirty-two  years  that  preceded  the 
advent  of  the  first  successful  American 
novel,  its  author,  James  Fenimore  Cooper, 
was  one  of  the  obscurest  and  seemingly  most 
commonplace  of  American  citizens.  Char- 
lotte Bronte  and  her  sister,  though  they 
began  writing  letters,  stories,  and  plays  at  a 
very  early  age,  yet  did  not  produce  anything 
noteworthy  until  they  were  about  thirty. 
Fielding  was  forty-three  wrhen  he  wrote 
"  Tom  Jones,"  and  Sterne  was  forty-six 
when  "Tristram  Shandy"  appeared.  Had 
Shakespeare  died  at  thirty,  Bacon  at  thirty- 
five,  Spencer  at  thirty -seven,  "  George  Eliot" 
at  thirty-eight,  Addison,  Dryden,  and  Gib- 
bon at  forty,  Hallam  at  forty-one,  Scott  and 


94  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

Hume  at  forty-three,  Butler,  Richardson, 
and  Cowper  at  fifty,  Grote  at  fifty-two, 
Locke  and  De  Foe  at  fifty-eight,  and  Milton 
at  sixty,  it  is  doubtful  if  even  a  very  com- 
plete history  of  English  literature  would 
have  favored  them  with  so  much  as  the 
briefest  mention. 

Bach  did  not  compose  until  after  forty, 
while  Haydn  did  not  develop  his  peculiar 
merits  as  a  composer  till  near  sixty  years  of 
age.  Sir  Christopher  Wren  did  not  betray 
his  qualities  as  an  architect  until  about 
thirty.  At  the  earliest  mention  of  the  art 
of  printing,  Gutenberg  was  about  forty  years 
old.  Columbus  was  fifty-six  when  he  plant- 
ed the  Spanish  flag  on  San  Salvador.  Frank- 
lin was  forty  when  he  began  his  investiga- 
tions in  electricity,  and  Stephenson  was 
thirty-two  when  he  constructed  the  first  loco- 
motive steam-engine.  Harvey  published  his 
great  discovery  at  fifty,  and  Darwin  his 
"Descent  of  Man"  at  the  same  age.  Des- 
cartes, Hobbes,  and  Leibnitz  did  not  achieve 
philosophical  distinction  until  after  fifty,  and 
Kant  at  forty-six.  Niebuhr's  first  volume 


PRECOCITY.  9fi 

was  published  at  thirty-nine,  Thirl  wall's  at 
thirty-eight,  and  Grote's  at  fifty-two.  Had 
Cromwell  died  at  forty-three,  England 
would,  in  all  probability,  have  missed  one 
of  the  most  glorious  epochs  of  her  whole 
history — the  Commonwealth. 

A  recent  writer  in  the  "  Nineteenth  Cent- 
ury," Mr.  James  Sully,  has  given  the  sub- 
ject of  "Precocity"  as  related  to  genius  a 
very  full  and  able  consideration,  and  we 
know  of  no  more  appropriate  or  effective 
means  of  concluding  the  present  chapter  than 
by  transferring  to  these  pages  his  tabulated 
summary.  Mr.  Sully  has  based  his  observa- 
tions and  generalizations  upon  the  recorded 
lives  of  between  two  hundred  and  fifty  and 
three  hundred  of  the.  most  eminent  of  men  in 
all  the  various  departments  of  intellectual 
pursuits — men  whom  we  would  unhesitat- 
ingly call  geniuses.  Of  these,  the  numbers 
showing  distinct  promise  before  twenty,  in 
the  several  classes,  are  represented  by  the 
following  fractions: 

Musicians nineteen-twentieths. 

Artists eight-ninths. 

Scholars  five-sixths. 


96  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

Poets three-fourths. 

Novelists three  fourths. 

Scientists three-fourths. 

Philosophers two-thirds. 

Assuming  work  before  the  age  of  thirty 
years  as  representing  early  production,  the 
proportions  in  the  different  groups  are  about 
as  follows: 

Musicians    all. 

Artists forty-one-forty-seconds. 

Poets eleven-twelfths. 

Scientists  four-fifths. 

Scholars five-sevenths. 

Philosophers five-ninths. 

Novelists nine-sixteenths. 

As  regards  the  age  of  distinction,  the  fol- 
lowing proportions  attained  it  before  fort}' : 

Musicians all. 

Artists all. 

Poets eleven-twelfths. 

Scientists eleven-twelfths. 

Scholars nine-tenths. 

Novelists four-fifths. 

Philosophers three-fifths. 

Mr.  Sully' s  concluding  remark  respecting 
the  foregoing  data  is  as  follows:  "  We  note 
that  the  order  in  respect  of  precocity  answers 
roughly  to  the  degree  of  abstractness  of  the 
faculty  employed.  At  the  one  extreme, 
musicians  and  artists  represent  sensuous 
faculty,  or  the  least  abstract  mode  of  mental 


PRECOCITY.  97 

activity;  while  philosophers,  at  the  other 
extreme,  illustrate  the  highest  degree  of  ab- 
straction. Between  these  come  the  men  of 
imagination,  the  poets  and  novelists.  And 
this  is  the  very  order  we  should  antecedently 
expect  from  a  consideration  of  the  general 
laws  of  intellectual  development;  for  sense, 
imagination,  and  abstract  thought  are  the 
three  well-marked  stages  of  intellectual  prog- 
ress." 

Finally,  if  we  strike  an  average  of  the  frac- 
tional proportions  presented  in  each  of  the 
above  tables,  we  shall  find  that,  of  the  nearly 
three  hundred  geniuses  considered,  about 
five-sixths  of  the  entire  number  exhibited 
extraordinary  promise  before  twenty  years 
of  age;  eleven-fourteenths  of  them  produced 
characteristic  work  before  thirty;  and  eight- 
tenths  of  them  achieved  distinction  before 
forty.  Assuredly,  with  this  overwhelming 
preponderance  of  evidence  in  its  favor,  it  can 
no  longer  be  questioned  that  extraordinary 
earliness  of  development  and  production — or, 
in  a  word,  precocity — is  a  usual,  if  not  an 
invariable,  accompaniment  of  genius. 


98  A   STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

The  reason  why  this  is  not  more  univer- 
sally manifest  than  it  is,  is  probably  due  to 
the  obscurity  and  poverty  that  have  beset 
the  early  years  of  so  many  gifted  men.  Had 
the  infancy  and  youth  of  all  geniuses  been 
passed  alike  amid  appreciative,  fostering, 
and  tale-bearing  environments,  it  is  not  at 
all  improbable  that  the  remarkable  evidences 
of  precocity  recorded  of  the  large  majority 
of  them  would  be  equally  patent  of  all  the 
remainder. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

GENIUS  AND  LABOR. 

Do  the  Creations  of  Genius  Involve  Labor  ? — Affirmative  View 
Favored  by  Longfellow,  Ruskin,  Carlyle,  Thomas  Moore, 
James  Sully,  Tacitus,  Hogarth,  CluirlesSumner,  Buffon. — 
Examples  of  tlie  Foregoing  View.  — Contrary  Opinions  of 
Emerson  and  Carlyle. — Examples  in  Support  of  Latter 
View. — The  Amount  of  labor  Dependent  Upon  the  Nature 
of  the  Sphere  of  the  Genius. — With  all  Geniuses  Original 
Ideas  or  Conceptions  are  Spontaneous,  or  Nearly  so;  Con- 
scious Labor  beiny  Necessary  Chiefly  for  Giving  Material 
Expression  to  those  Conceptions. 

Two  very  widely  different  views  have  been 
held  as  regards  the  degree  of  mental  labor 
involved  in  the  production  of  the  works  of 
genius.  Some  have  claimed  that  genius  pro- 
ceeds with  a  step  as  slow  and  labored  as  it  is 
sure  and  irresistible;  while,  on  the  contrary, 
others  have  held  that  one  of  the  most  essen- 
tial characteristics  of  genius  is  that  it  ac- 
complishes its  ends  with  phenomenal  rapid- 
ity and  ease. 

We  shall  hear  the  advocates  of  these  two 
separate  views  in  the  order  just  indicated. 

(99) 


100  A  STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

Longfellow,  in  his  "  Ladder  of  St.  Augus- 
tine," affirms: 

"  The  heights  by  great  men  reached  and  kept 

Were  not  attained  by  sudden  flight, 

But  they,  while  their  companions  slept, 

Were  toiling  upward  in  the  night. " 

In  his  essay  on  "  The  True  and  Beautiful," 
Ruskin  remarks  :  "The  fact  is,  that  a  man 
of  genius  is  always  far  more  ready  to  work 
than  other  people,  and  is  often  so  little 
conscious  of  the  inherent  divinity  in  himself, 
that  he  is  very  apt  to  ascribe  all  his  capacity 
to  his  work.  Genius  in  the  arts  must  com- 
monly be  more  self-conscious,  but  in  what- 
ever field,  it  will  always  be  distinguished  by 
its  perpetual,  steady,  well-directed,  happy, 
and  faithful  labor  in  accumulating  and  dis- 
ciplining its  powers,  as  well  as  by  its  gigan- 
tic, incommunicable  facility  in  exercising 
them." 

Carlyle,  in  writing  of  Scott,  says  :  ' '  Great 
writers  do  not  write  rapidly  and  easily." 

"Nothing  great  and  durable,"  observes 
Tom  Moore,  "has  ever  been  produced  with 
ease.  Labor  is  the  parent  of  all  the  lasting 


GENIUS   AND   LABOR..  101 

monuments  of  this  world,  whether  in  verse 
or  in  stone,  in  poetry  or  in  pyramids." 

"All  fine  original  work,"  says  James 
Sully,  in  his  admirable  article  on  Genius  and 
Insanity,  "  it  may  be  safely  said,  represents 
severe  intellectual  labor  on  the  part  of  the 
producer,  not  necessarily  at  the  moment  of 
achievement,  but  at  least  in  a  preparatory 
collection  and  partial  elaboration  of  mate- 
rial." 

" Meditatio  et  labor"  according  to  Taci- 
tus, are  the  only  passports  to  literary  im- 
mortality. 

"I  know  no  such  thing  as  genius,"  says 
Hogarth.  "Genius  is  nothing  but  labor 
and  diligence."  "Who  shall  say,"  queries 
Charles  Sumner,  "that  the  power  to  work  is 
not  itself  genius?"  And  Buffon  meant 
about  the  same  thing  when  he  said,  "  Genius 
is  only  great  patience." 

Of  the  almost  innumerable  instances  that 
may  be  cited  in  proof  of  the  above  opinions, 
we  shall  present  the  following  : 

It  is  said  to  have  taken  Virgil  three  years 
to  compose  his  ten  short  Eclogues,  seven 


102  A  STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

years  to  write  his  G-eorgics,  and  twelve  years 
to  elaborate  the  J3neid.  The  last  he  was 
several  times  tempted  to  destroy  because  of 
its  fancied  incompleteness.  Lucretius'  single 
poem  was  the  work  of  a  life-time.  It  took 
Thucydides  twenty  years  to  write  a  work 
comprised  in  an  octavo  volume.  Diodorus 
was  thirty  years  in  composing  his  history. 
Isocrates  is  said  to  have  consumed  ten  years 
on  his  Panegyric,  and  Giannone  nearly  the 
same  time  on  his  "  History  of  Naples." 

Locke  spent  eighteen  years  upon  his 
"Essay  on  the  Human  Understanding." 
The  great  French  artist,  Claude  Lorraine, 
painted  slowly  and  with  great  labor. 
Greece's  master  painter  of  ancient  times 
apologized  for  his  slow  work  by  saying, 
"It  is  because  I  work  for  immortality." 
Gray,  though  he  may  not  be  allowed  to  be- 
long to  the  gallery  of  the  poetical  geniuses 
of  the  world,  yet  wrought  one  of  the  com- 
paratively few  poems  that  mankind  can  not 
afford  to  forget.  The  "Elegy  Written  in  a 
Country  Church-yard ' '  was  twenty  years  in 
passing  through  its  evolutionary  processes. 


GENIUS  AND   LABOR.  103 

The  uniquest,  if  not  the  greatest,  of  German 
romances,  "Titan,"  constituted  the  main 
literary  output  of  ten  of  the  most  virile  years 
of  Richter's  life.  The  greater  part  of  the 
ripest  seventeen  years  of  his  life  Gibbon  ex- 
pended upon  his  "History  of  the  Decline  and 
Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire. ' '  Grote  spent  ten 
years  upon  his  "  History  of  Greece."  Adam 
Clarke  consumed  twenty-six  years  on  his 
"Commentary."  Carlyle  devoted  fifteen 
years  to  the  writing  of  his  "Frederick  the 
Great."  "George  Eliot"  read  one  thou- 
sand books  preparatory  to  the  writing  of 
"Daniel  Deronda."  Alison  read  two  thou- 
sand books  while  preparing  his  history.  It 
is  said  that  Buckle  gave  his  life  to  reading 
history;  that  he  read  forty  thousand  vol- 
umes, and  wrote  only  two. 

The  sparkle  and  flow  of  Lamb's  essays, 
seemingly  so  spontaneous,  were  the  rewards 
of  the  most  scrupulous  painstaking  upon  the 
part  of  their  author.  Days  were  consumed 
in  fashioning  a  single  letter  to  a  friend,  and 
he  was  never  done  with  emending  a  proof- 
sheet.  Tennyson  is  known  to  have  rewritten 


104  A  STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

several  of  his  most  highly  admired  poems  a 
score  or  more  of  times  before  submitting 
them  to  the  printer.  Balzac,  the  great 
French  novelist,  would  rewrite  his  manu- 
scripts a  half-dozen  or  more  times  before 
sending  them  to  press,  and  the  proofs  re- 
turned were  subjected  to  no  end  of  altera- 
tion. The  artistic  perfection  and  melodic 
rhythm  of  Longfellow's  poetry,  so  suggest- 
ive of  a  natural  and  easy  origin,  are,  on  the 
contrary,  the  fruits  of  very  careful  study 
and  devoted  labor. 

Moore,  the  most  transparent  and  musical 
of  poets,  thought  fifteen  or  twenty  lines  a 
good  day's  work.  Buff  on  spent  fifty  years 
upon  his  "Studies  of  Nature."  Words- 
worth was  in  the  habit  of  putting  aside  his 
first  casting  of  a  poem  for  weeks  or  months; 
then  taking  it  up,  he  would  bestow  as  much 
labor  upon  it  as  at  first,  if  not  more,  before 
finally  parting  with  it  to  the  public.  Horace 
was  of  opinion  that  a  writer  should  with- 
hold his  work  from  the  public  eye  for 
nine  years  after  its  first  execution.  Tasso's 
manuscripts  can  hardly  be  deciphered,  be- 


GENIUS   AND   LABOK.  1()5 

cause  of  their  numerous  erasures  and  inter- 
lineations. 

Pope  says  of  Addison,  that  model  of  cor- 
rectness and  perspicacity  of  style,  that  "he 
would  show  his  verses  to  several  friends,  and 
would  alter  nearly  everything  that  any  of 
them  hinted  was  wrong."  And  Pope  him- 
self usually  gave  his  productions  a  year's 
sweating  before  committing  them  to  print. 

"It  is  a  very  great  error,"  says  Mozart, 
"to  suppose  that  my  art  has  been  easily  ac- 
quired. I  assure  you  that  there  is  scarcely 
anyone  that  has  so  worked  at  the  study  of 
composition  as  I  have.  You  could  hardly 
mention  any  former  composer  whose  writings 
I  have  not  diligently  and  repeatedly  studied 
throughout." 

The  author  of  "Hudibras"  kept  n  com- 
mon-place book,  in  which  he  very  industri- 
ously penned  such  remarks,  similitudes,  al- 
lusions, and  inferences  as  his  reading  or 
thought  suggested,  and  his  immortal  bur- 
lesque was  the  product  of  years  of  such  pre- 
paratory studies  and  premeditation.  Gold- 
smith regarded  four  lines  a  day  as  good 


106  A  STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

work,  and  was  seven  years  in  constructing 
his  "  Deserted  Village." 

Giotto,  one  of  the  most  comprehensive 
geniuses  that  art  has  ever  known,  was  quite 
as  extraordinary  for  the  amount  and  the  dif- 
ficult character  of  the  work  he  executed,  as 
for  the  surpassing  excellence  of  its  quality. 
Leonardo  Da  Vinci,  the  most  versatile  of 
all  geniuses,  was  yet  one  of  the  most  fastid- 
ious and  indefatigable  of  workers.  In  pre- 
paring for  his  world-famous  cartoon,  "The 
Struggle  for  the  Standard,"  he  subjected 
himself  to  months  of  study  in  the  dissecting- 
room,  and  actually  wrote  an  original  and  ex- 
haustive treatise  on  the  anatomy  of  the 
horse,  before  permitting  his  hands  to  touch 
the  clay  for  modeling  his  work.  Michael 
Angelo  was  scrupulously  conscientious  even 
as  to  the  smallest  technical  details;  prepar- 
ing his  own  grounds,  mixing  his  own  colors, 
and  inventing  and  constructing,  with  his 
own  hands,  the  tools  with  which  he  wrought 
his  matchless  sculptures.  Meissonier  spent 
the  best  part  of  his  time  for  fifteen  years 
upon  his  great  picture,  "  1807." 


GENIU8  AND  LABOR.  107 

Haydn,  after  he  had  fairly  begun  his  ca- 
reer as  a  music  student,  and  when  still  a 
youth,  declared  that  thereafter  he  did  not 
recollect  to  have  passed  a  single  day  without 
practicing  sixteen  hours,  and  sometimes 
eighteen.  And  when  at  his  maturity,  he 
spent  two  years  in  composing  the  colossal 
oratorio  of  the  "Creation."  Beethoven  be- 
came so  absorbed  in  his  composition  of  the 
mass  in  D  major,  that  he  did  not  finish  it 
until  two  years  after  the  event  had  passed 
by  which  it  was  designed  to  celebrate. 

And  now  let  us  regard  some  of  the  testi- 
mony and  facts  that  lie  upon  the  reverse  side 
of  this  question: 

Emerson,  in  "Representative  Men,"  de- 
clares: "I  count  him  a  great  man  who 
inhabits  a  higher  sphere  of  thought,  into 
which  other  men  rise  with  labor  and  diffi- 
culty; he  has  but  to  open  his  eyes  to  see 
things  in  a  true  light,  and  in  large  relations; 
whilst  they  must  make  painful  corrections, 
and  keep  a  vigorous  eye  on  many  sources  of 
error." 


108  A  STUDY  OF  GENIUS. 

Having  already  quoted  Carlyle  on  the 
affirmative  side  of  the  present  issue,  we  shall 
equalize  matters  by  now  citing  him  on  the 
negative  side.  He  says:  "  No  great  intellect- 
ual thing  was  ever  done  by  great  effort;  a 
great  thing  can  only  be  done  by  a  great  man, 
and  he  does  it  without  effort." 

As  confirmatory  of  the  opinion  just  noted, 
the  following  instances,  which  might  be  in- 
definitely multiplied,  if  it  were  necessary, 
will  probably  suffice : 

Plutarch  said  of  Cicero:  "It  was  not  by 
slow  and  insensible  degrees  that  he  gained 
the  palm  of  eloquence;  his  fame  shot  forth 
at  once,  and  he  was  distinguished  above  all 
the  orators  of  Rome."  It  is  reported  that 
Lucilius  could  turn  off  two  hundred  verses 
while  standing  on  one  leg.  Query:  Could  it 
have  been  a  wooden  leg?  And  did  the 
verses  turned  off  resemble  their  pivot  ?  Dry- 
den  produced  four  of  his  greatest  works  in 
a  single  year,  the  original  draught  of  "Alex- 
ander' s  Feast ' '  having  been  struck  off  at  a 
single  sitting.  "Rasselas"  was  written  by 
Johnson  in  a  week,  the  "Life  of  Savage" 


GENIUS   AND   LABOR.  1U9 

in  thirty-six  hours,  and  his  "Hermit  of 
Teneriffe"  in  a  single  night.  Mrs.  Brown- 
ing's "Lady  Geraldine's  Courtship"  was 
completed  in  twelve  hours — presumably  a 
shorter  time  than  the  lady  herself  would 
have  consented  to.  Ben  Jonson  wrote  the 
' '  Alchymist ' '  in  six  weeks.  ' '  Telemaque ' ' 
was  written  by  Fenelon  in  three  months. 
A  day  or  two  sufficed  for  Lope  de  Vega  to 
write  a  play  in;  a  farce  was  the  sport  of  an 
hour;  and  he  left  to  posterity  two  thousand 
original  dramas.  Is  it  not  probable  that  pos- 
terity will  require  about  two  thousand  years 
for  digesting  the  generous  Spaniard's  be- 
quest ? 

Speaking  of  the  facility  with  which  Sir 
Walter  Scott  composed,  Robert  Hogg,  his 
copyist  and  amanuensis  for  some  time,  de- 
clares: "  He  sat  in  his  chair,  from  which  he 
arose  now  and  then,  took  a  volume  from  the 
book-case,  consulted  it,  and  returned  it  to 
the  shelf,  all  without  intermission  in  the  cur- 
rent of  ideas,  which  continued  to  be  deliv- 
ered with  no  less  readiness  than  if  his  mind 
had  been  wholly  occupied  with  the  words  he 


110  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

was  uttering.  It  soon  became  apparent  to 
me  that  he  was  carrying  on  two  distinct 
trains  of  thought,  one  of  which  was  already 
arranged,  and  was  in  the  act  of  being  spoken, 
while  at  the  same  time  he  was  in  the  advance 
considering  what  was  afterward  to  be  said. ' ' 
He  was  engaged,  at  the  time  of  his  great 
financial  misfortune,  in  writing  the  "Life 
of  Bonaparte,"  and  also  his  new  novel, 
"Woodstock;"  and,  says  his  biographer, 
Lockhart,  "Even  on  the  day  which  brought 
him  assurance  of  the  great  catastrophe,  he 
resumed,  in  the  afternoon,  the  task  which 
had  engaged  him  in  the  morning."  Some 
idea  of  the  rapidity  with  which  he  produced 
his  fictions  may  be  gained  from  the  state- 
ment that,  beginning  with  "Waverly,"  his 
works,  during  the  next  ensuing  decade,  were 
issued  at  the  rate  of  a  volume  and  a  half  a 
year. 

In  not  a  few  instances,  Dickens  carried  on 
two  of  his  stories  at  a  time,  and  for  nearly 
thirty  continuous  years  his  annual  average 
of  production  was  almost  a  volume,  and  a 
large  volume  at  that.  "I  had  come,"  says 


GENIUS   AND   LABOR.  Ill 

Groethe,  "to  regard  the  poetic  talent  dwell- 
ing in  me  entirely  as  nature;  the  rather  that 
I  was  directed  to  look  upon  external  nature 
as  its  proper  subject.  The  exercise  of  this 
poetic  gift  might  be  stimulated  and  deter- 
mined by  occasion,  but  it  flowed  forth  more 
joyfully  and  richly  when  it  came  involun- 
tarily, or  even  against  my  will." 

Byron  was  not  a  little  vain  of  the  facility 
with  which  he  shot  forth  his  compositions; 
and,  by  way  of  correcting  the  incredulity  of 
certain  hostile  critics  upon  this  point,  pre- 
fixed to  many  of  his  poems  a  note  of  the 
exact  time  both  of  his  commencing  and  his 
finishing  them.  Here  are  some  of  the  most 
pertinent  of  these  memoranda.  In  the  in- 
troduction to  his  tragedy  of  "  Sardana- 
palus,"  he  says:  "The  three  last  acts  were 
written  since  the  13th  of  May,  1821;  that  is 
to  say,  in  a  fortnight."  Between  June  llth 
and  July  10th  of  the  same  year,  his  five-act 
tragedy,  "The  Two  Foscari,"  was  com- 
posed; and  between  December  18th  of  the 
same  year  and  January  20,  1822,  his  trag- 
edy of  "Werner,"  also  in  five  acts,  was 


112  A   STUDY    OF  GENIUS. 

written.  The  time  actually  consumed  in 
composing  the  various  cantos  of  "Don 
Juan"  scarcely  exceeded  the  average  of  a 
month  for  each.  In  one  of  his  letters  he 
says:  "'Lara'  I  wrote  while  undressing, 
after  coming  home  from  balls  and  masquer- 
ades, in  the  year  of  revelry,  1814.'-  The 
"  Corsair,"  a  tale  of  over  two  thousand  lines, 
he  wrote  in  thirteen  days. 

Robert  Burns,  the  greatest  of  Scotland's 
poets,  and  certainly  one  of  the  most  genuine 
sons  of  the  Muse  anywhere  to  be  met  with, 
was  a  notable  incarnation  of  the  spontaneity 
of  the  poetic  afflatus.  "Death  and  Doctor 
Hornbook ' '  was  written  while  its  author  was 
seated  on  a  bridge,  on  his  way  home  from 
attending  a  convivial  meeting,  and  just  be- 
fore succumbing  to  its  effects.  His  touching 
lines  "To  a  Mouse"  were  composed  upon 
his  bed,  during  the  night  that  followed  his 
witnessing  of  the  incidents  that  suggested 
them.  The  church  wherein  the  incident  took 
place,  and  the  few  moments  necessary  for  the 
episode,  constituted  the  time  and  the  place 
of  the  composition  of  his  sprightly  poem, 


GENIUS   AND   LABOR.  113 

"To  a  Louse."  "The  Twa  Dogs"  was  a 
waif  of  fancy,  picked  up  while  walking 
home.  That  vivid  medley  of  the  ludicrous 
and  the  awful,  "  Tarn  O'Shanter,"  was  a 
road-side  conception.  The  sublime  and  pa- 
thetic song,  "To  Mary  in  Heaven,"  came 
to  our  bard's  mind  on  the  anniversary  of 
his  loved  one's  death,  while  he  lay  upon 
the  ground,  with  his  eyes  fixed  upon  the 
starry  sky.  Indeed,  all  of  Burns'  effusions, 
with  few  exceptions,  were  inspirations  of 
the  moment — unpremeditated  conceptions 
of  his  ever-alert  poetic  faculty,  which,  like 
the  eggs  of  certain  birds,  were  deposited  in 
all  manner  of  odd  nooks — upon  the  walls  of 
rooms,  the  window-panes  of  inns,  the  fly- 
leaves of  books,  the  pages  of  albums;  but 
which,  in  most  instances,  were  flashed  forth 
in  impromptu  sentiments  or  songs,  direct 
from  the  battery  of  his  fancy. 

"Saul,"  the  first  of  Handel's  immortal 
oratorios,  was  composed  between  July  3d  and 
September  27th  of  the  year  1738.  "Israel 
in  Egypt,"  with  its  twenty-eight  colossal 
choruses,  its  four  recitatives,  and  its  three 


114  A    STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

duets,  was  composed  within  the  incredible 
limit  of  twenty-seven  days,  while  his  master- 
piece, the  "Messiah,"  the  foremost  compo- 
sition of  its  kind  ever  conceived,  was  exe- 
cuted in  twenty-three  days. 

Mozart  wrote  his  "  Don  Giovanni "  in  the 
brief  space  of  a  few  weeks,  the  overture 
having  been  composed  in  two  hours.  His 
grandest  symphonies — the  E-flat  major,  G 
minor,  and  C  major — were  all  produced 
within  the  narrow  compass  of  six  weeks. 
Some  fifty  compositions,  including  in  their 
number  the  grand  piano -forte  concerto  in  B 
flat,  the  cantata  named  "Ave  verum  Cor- 
pus," and  the  opera  of  the  "  Magic  Flute," 
were  compressed  within  the  last  six  months 
of  his  life.  That  most  impressive  prayer,  in 
the  oratorio  of  "Moses  in  Egypt,"  of  the 
Israelites  before  and  after  the  crossing  of  the 
Red  Sea,  was  written  by  Rossini  in  his 
night-shirt,  in  eight  or  ten  minutes.  Of 
" Semiramide "  he  declares:  "It  is  the  only 
one  of  my  operas  that  I  was  able  to  do  a 
little  at  my  ease;  my  contract  gave  me  forty 
days,  but  I  was  not  forty  days  in  wilting  it." 


GENIUS   AND   LABOE.  115 

Moreover,  society,  the  foe  with  most  of  cre- 
ative workers,  was  to  him  a  Mend  and  in- 
spirer.  Schubert  poured  forth  his  musical 
thoughts  so  spontaneously,  and  so  inex- 
haustible seemed  his  resources  of  song,  that 
Schumann  once  said  of  him,  i '  In  time  he 
would  probably  have  set  the  whole  of  Ger- 
man literature  to  music."  Surely  a  noble 
tribute  to  the  gigantic  achievements  of  one 
who  died  at  thirty-one  years  of  age — the 
youngest  of  all  the  world's  great  tone  poets  ! 
However  many  more  opinions,  each  forti- 
fied with  appropriate  examples,  we  might 
adduce,  we  are  satisfied  that,  like  those 
already  presented,  they  would  simply  range 
themselves  on  one  side  or  the  other  of  the 
question  before  us,  in  about  equal  force,  and 
thus  maintain  the  present  equilibrium  of 
evidence.  And  so,  on  the  one  hand,  we  find 
a  large  number  of  unquestionable  geniuses, 
whom  Atlas,  exerting  his  gigantic  strength 
to  its  utmost  to  uphold  the  world,  may  fitly 
symbolize;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  we  meet 
with  an  equally  large  number  of  equally 
pure  and  great  geniuses,  whose  mode  of  pro- 


116  A   STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

cedure  is  best  typified  by  Phoebus  Apollo 
riding  forth  in  his  chariot  of  the  sun  to  daily 
supremacy  with  resplendent  might  and  ease. 

Of  two  persons,  each  of  whom  shall  bring 
about  equally  admirable  results,  he  who 
attains  his  end  with  the  lesser  effort  is  un- 
doubtedly the  abler  man  It  is  the  glory  of 
Egyptian  artisans  of  old,  that  they  were 
able,  by  means  of  mechanical  powers  un- 
known to  moderns,  to  lift  into  architectural 
position  enormous  masses  of  stone;  but 
Orpheus,  it  is  fabled,  effected  a  like  result 
by  simply  striking  his  lyre.  The  powers 
of  the  former,  however  phenomenal,  were 
simply  human,  while  those  of  the  latter- 
presupposing  their  existence— could  apper- 
tain to  nothing  short  of  the  supernatural. 

As  to  whether  much  or  little  labor  is  in- 
volved, depends,  in  no  small  measure,  it 
would  seem,  upon  the  nature  of  the  office  to 
which  the  genius  is  summoned.  Is  it  one 
that  necessitates  the  discovery,  the  collec- 
tion, the  selection,  and  the  arrangement  of 
materials,  whether  of  an  objective  or  sub- 
jective nature  ?  or  does  it  demand  the  mastery 


GENIUS   AND   LABOR.  117 

of  numerous  details  and  their  systematized 
application  in  lines  of  original  investigation  ? 
then,  we  apprehend  that,  however  uncom- 
monly endowed  the  individual  may  be,  labor 
protracted  and  severe  is  the  inevitable  con- 
dition of  success.  But  if,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  genius  be  devoted  to  such  creative  pur- 
suits as  art,  or  music,  or  poetry,  or  fiction, 
there  is  reason  for  believing  that,  in  many 
instances,  he  may  sweep  to  his  accomplish- 
ment with  spontaneous  and  all  but  uncon- 
scious momentum.  And  of  the  two  modes 
of  manifestation,  the  latter — the  creative — is 
undeniably  the  greater. 

But  while  the  foregoing  theory  may  har- 
monize a  majority  of  the  apparent  contradic- 
tions arising  under  the  head  of  the  relation 
of  genius  to  mental  effort,  it  utterly  fails  to 
explain  why,  among  geniuses  devoted  to  the 
least  abstract  and  reason-exerting  pursuits— 
to-wit :  painters,  poets,  musicians,  and  fic- 
tionists — there  is  but  little  agreement  in  their 
several  rates  of  mental  production.  For 
example  :  Among  poets,  Longfellow,  Moore, 
Virgil,  Gray,  Tennyson,  Wordsworth,  Tasso, 

8 


118  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

Pope,  Butler,  and  Goldsmith  are  named  as 
slpw  producers,  while  Shakespeare,  Dryden, 
Johnson,  Mrs.  Browning,  Jonson,  Lope  de 
Vega,  Scott,  Goethe,  Byron,  and  Burns  are 
cited  as  rapid  workers;  of  musicians,  Haydn 
and  Beethoven  belonged  to  the  first  class, 
while  Bach,  Handel,  Rossini,  and  Schubert 
fell  under  the  second,  Mozart  seeming  to 
fall  alternately  under  each  head ;  of  artists, 
Giotto,  Da  Vinci,  Angelo,  and  Claude  Lor- 
raine are  classed  as  earning  the  bread  of  ce- 
lebrity by  the  sweat  of  the  brow,  while 
Raphael,  Correggio,  Rembrandt,  Reynolds, 
Turner,  Vandyck's  and  Rubens  won  renown 
by  single  strokes  of  the  brush ;  and  of  fic- 
tionists,  Richter,  "George Eliot,"  and  Balzac 
wrought  with  greatest  pains,  while  Scott, 
Dickens,  and  Goethe  did  their  best  work 
with  the  least  cogitation. 

May  not  a  clearer  understanding  of  these 
seemingly  irreconcilable  data  be  had — in- 
deed, may  we  not  secure  a  more  satisfactory 
explanation  of  the  whole  puzzle  of  the  ex- 
tent to  which  genius  lies  under  the  yoke  of 
mental  toil — by  keeping  this  well-known 


GENIUS  AND   LABOR.  119 

truth  full  in  view,  namely :  that  every 
achievement  involves  two  distinct  elements — 
the  idea,  or  the  mental  process  of  concep- 
tion, and  the  giving  objectivity  to  that  idea  ? 
As  between  these  two  factors,  the  element  of 
labor  inheres  mainly  in  the  latter.  Except 
where  they  depend  upon  a  long  series  of 
inductions,  as  in  the  case  of  certain  physical 
or  social  laws,  all  original  ideas  or  concep- 
tions are  of  instant  and  painless  birth. 
They  seem  either  to  spring  up  spontane- 
ously in  the  mind,  or  else  to  be  flashed  into 
it  with  lightning-like  speed  and  thrill  by 
suggestive  surroundings  or  experiences.  The 
consciousness  of  participation  in  their  origin, 
and  more  especially  the  sense  of  effort  in 
their  production,  are  wholly  absent  from  the 
mind.  They  are  unexpectedly  and  unex- 
pensively  with  us — guests  after  a  new  and 
ineffable  fashion,  whose  whole  history  is 
best  summed  up  in  the  very  vague  term — 
inspirations.  These  constitute  the  central 
thought  of  a  poem,  the  theme  of  a  musical 
composition,  the  motive  of  a  picture  or  piece 
of  sculpture,  the  plot  of  a  story;  and  these, 


120  A  STUDY  OF  GENIUS. 

though  they  are  allowed  to  be  the  distin- 
guishing characteristic,  the  crowning  glory, 
of  their  several  possessors — the  poet,  the 
musician,  the  painter,  the  sculptor,  the  fic- 
tionist — are  the  very  things  whose  existence 
costs  their  owners  the  least  degree  of  effort. 

The  explanation  of  the  great  differences 
that  have  arisen  between  geniuses  in  the 
amount  of  mental  labor  bestowed  upon 
their  several  productions  must,  therefore,  be 
sought  for  in  the  second  of  the  factors  which 
constitute  every  achievement — that  of  giving 
expression  or  external  form  to  conceptions. 

All  ideas,  however  extraordinary  their 
first  estate,  are  susceptible  of  a  greater  or 
less  degree  of  expansion  and  modification, 
and  their  interpretation  to  the  public  always 
necessitates  some,  and  frequently  much, 
elaboration.  Such  adaptive  and  develop- 
mental work,  however,  does  not  demand  the 
same  high  order  of  intellectual  equipment 
as  is  indispensable  for  great  creative  achieve- 
ments. It  is  a  subordinate  grade  of  work, 
which  partakes  very  largely  of  the  mechan- 
ical, and  which  is  mostly  done  in  conformity 


GENIUS   AND   LABOR.  121 

to  well-known  rules  and  well-worn  routine- 
in  a  word,  the  proper  material  for  the  exer- 
cise of  mere  talents.  And  it  is  precisely  in 
the  performance  of  such,  less  than  superior 
functions,  that  geniuses  manifest  their  glar- 
ing differences  of  adaptability — differences 
which  do  not  affect  them  as  geniuses,  but 
show  their  disparities  simply  in  the  line  of 
their  more  or  less  commonplace  faculties 
known  as  talents. 

Our  conclusion,  then,  of  the  whole  subject 
of  genius  and  its  relation  to  mental  effort,  is 
this :  that  in  all  that  pertains  to  the  highest 
— the  characteristic  excellences  of  any  work 
of  genius — there  is  involved  but  little,  if  any, 
conscious  exertion  of  mind,  and  therefore, 
that  all  geniuses  conceive  with  a  facility 
bordering  on  the  spontaneous;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  in  what  relates  to  the  giving  of 
a  permanent  material  form  to  their  creations 
— the  more  or  less  mechanical  part  of  their 
work — there  is  evident  a  great  diversity  of 
painstaking;  some  shaping  their  conceptions 
into  graphic  and  eloquent  expression  with 
ecstatic  ease,  while  others  attain  the  end 
only  through  long  and  painful  experiment. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

IS  GENIUS  SELF-CONSCIOUS? 

Affirmative  Opinions  of  John  Burroughs,  Ruskin,  Schopen- 
hauer, Goetlie,  Lord  Lytton. — Confirmation  of  Foregoing 
Opinions. — Negative  Views  of  Carlyle  and  Hazlitt. — Ex- 
amples Confirming  the  Latter  View. — All  Geniuses  are 
Self- Conscious,  but  tliey  Differ  in  their  Control  of  its  Man- 
ifestation to  Others. 

The  world  has  made  so  many  mistakes 
concerning  the  possessors  of  genius — some- 
times having  failed  altogether  to  recognize 
their  presence,  and  quite  as  often  having 
supposed  certain  ones  to  be  geniuses  who 
eventually  disclosed  the  fact  that  their  metal 
was  largely  spurious — that  it  is  not  at  all 
surprising  that  doubt  should  arise  as  to 
whether  men  of  genius  have  been  conscious 
of  their  own  extraordinary  endowments,  or 
of  the  real  value  of  their  own  achievements. 

Let  us  first  inquire  what  grounds  there 
are  for  inclining  to  the  belief  that  men  of 
genius  are  measurably,  if  not  fully,  aware  of 
their  exceptional  powers  of  mind.  Some 
weighty  opinions  favor  this  view. 


124  A  STUDY  OF  GENIUS. 

John  Burroughs  says:  "The  great  man 
always  believes  in  himself,  and  in  his  own 
opportunities  and  land." 

Ruskin,  in  his  essay  on  the  "True  and 
Beautiful,"  uses  these  words:  '"All  great 
men  not  only  know  their  business,  but 
usually  know  that  they  know  it;  and  are  not 
only  right  in  their  main  opinions,  but  they 
usually  know  that  they  are  right  in  them; 
only  they  do  not  think  much  of  themselves 
on  that  account.  They  have  a  curious  un- 
der-sense  of  powerlessness,  feeling  that  the 
greatness  is  not  in  them,  but  through  them; 
that  they  could  not  do  or  be  anything  else 
than  God  made  them." 

Coleridge  affirms :  ' '  The  men  of  the  great- 
est genius,  as  far  as  we  can  judge  from  their 
own  works  or  from  the  accounts  of  their 
contemporaries,  appear  to  have  been  of 
calm  and  tranquil  temper  in  all  that  related 
to  themselves.  In  the  inward  assurance  of 
permanent  fame,  they  seem  to  have  been 
either  indifferent  or  resigned  with  regard  to 
immediate  reputation.  Shakespeare's  even- 
ness and  sweetness  of  temper  are  almost  pro- 


IS  GENIUS  SELF-CONSCIOUS?  125 

verbial  in  his  own  age.     That  this  did  not 
arise  from  ignorance  of  his  own  comparative 
greatness,   we  have  abundant  proof  in  his 
sonnets." 
One  of  these  sonnets  begins : 

"  Not  marble,  nor  the  gilded  monuments 
Of  princes,  shall  outlive  this  powerful  rhyme." 

And  in  another  the  bard  felicitates  him- 
self: 

"  Your  monument  shall  be  my  gentle  verse, 

Which  eyes  not  yet  created  shall  o'er  read, 
And  tongues  to  be  your  being  shall  rehearse, 

"When  all  the  breathers  of  this  world  are  dead; 
You  still  shall  live — such  virtue  hath  my  pen — 
Where  breath  most  breathes,  even  in  the  mouths  of 
men." 

Schopenhauer  declares  that  no  one  can  be 
blind  to  his  own  merit,  any  more  than  the 
man  who  is  six  feet  high  can  remain  igno- 
rant of  the  fact  that  he  towers  above  his 
fellows.  He  notes  the  pride  with  which 
Horace,  Lucretius,  Ovid,  Dante,  Shakes- 
peare, and  Bacon  have  spoken  of  themselves, 
and  quotes  the  Englishman  who  wittily  ob- 
served that  merit  and  modesty  have  nothing 
in  common  except  the  initial  letter.  "I 


126  A    STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

have  always  a  suspicion  about  modest 
celebrities,"  he  adds,  "that  they  may  be 
right." 

Goethe  has  declared:  "Only  good-for- 
nothings  are  modest." 

Lord  Lytton,  in  "Last  Days  of  Pompeii," 
affirms  :  ' '  No  one  ever  possessed  superior 
intellectual  qualities  without  knowing  them. 
It  is  the  proud  consciousness  of  certain  qual- 
ities that  it  can  not  reveal  to  the  every-day 
world,  that  gives  to  genius  that  shy,  and 
reserved,  and  troubled  air  which  puzzles 
and  flatters  you  when  you  encounter  it." 

In  illustration  of  the  foregoing  opinions, 
we  would  present  the  following  incidents 
and  facts : 

Parrhasius,  the  great  Greek  painter,  was 
not  only  conscious  of  his  extraordinary  abil- 
ity, but  is  reported  to  have  been  conceited  to 
a  remarkable  degree.  Buffon  affirmed  that 
of  great  geniuses  of  modern  times  there 
were  but  five — "  Newton,  Bacon,  Leibnitz, 
Montesquieu,  and  Buffon"  When  Dry  den 
was  congratulated  on  the  brilliancy  of  his 
famous  "Ode  on  St.  Cecilia's  Day,"  he  re- 


IS  GENIUS  SELF-CONSCIOUS?  127 

plied:  "You  are  right;  a  nobler  ode  was 
never  produced,  and  never  will  be." 

While  Salmasius,  Milton's  great  contro- 
versial opponent,  was  conversing  one  day,  in 
the  royal  library,  with  Gaulmin  and  Maussac 
—"I  think,"  observed  Gaulmin,  "that  we 
three  can  match  our  heads  against  all  that 
there  is  learned  in  Europe."  Salmasius  re- 
joined :  "Add  to  all  that  there  is  learned  in 
Europe,  yourself  and  M.  de  Maussac,  and  I 
can  match  my  single  head  against  the  whole 
of  you." 

When  Kepler,  after  seventeen  years  of  as- 
siduous investigation,  discovered  the  third 
of  his  laws,  he  ejaculated :  "I  will  indulge 
in  my  sacred  fury;  I  will  triumph  over  man- 
kind by  the  honest  confession  that  I  have 
stolen  the  golden  vases  of  the  Egyptians,  to 
build  up  a  tabernacle  for  my  God  far  away 
from  the  confines  of  Egypt.  The  die  is  cast; 
the  book  is  written,  to  be  read  either  now  or 
by  posterity — I  care  not  which.  It  may  well 
wait  a  century  for  a  reader,  as  God  has 
waited  six  thousand  years  for  an  observer." 

Lord  Bacon  wrote  in  his  will :    "For  my 


128  A   STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

name  and  memory,  I  leave  it  to  men's  char- 
itable speeches,  and  to  foreign  nations  and 
the  next  ages." 

Moore  relates  the  following  of  the  poet 
Wordsworth:  "One  day,  in  a  large  party, 
Wordsworth,  without  anything  having  been 
previously  said  that  could  lead  to  the  sub- 
ject, called  out  suddenly,  from  the  top  of  the 
table  to  the  bottom,  in  his  most  epic  tone, 
"  Davy,  do  you  know  the  reason  why  I  pub- 
lished the  '  White  Doe '  in  quarto  ? "  "  No ; 
what  was  it?"  "To  show  the  world  my 
opinion  of  it  ?" 

Pierre  Corneille  was  quite  devoid  of  all 
external  indications  of  his  splendid  mental 
equipment,  and  his  conversation  was  fre- 
quently very  tiresome.  When  his  friends 
taunted  him  with  these  defects,  he  would 
complacently  retort:  "  I  am  not  the  less 
Pierre  Corneille." 

In  answer  to  the  Pope's  messenger,  sent 
to  obtain  designs  from  the  best  artists  of 
the  day  for  certain  important  architectural 
works  at  Rome,  Giotto  seized  a  pencil,  in- 
stantly drew  a  perfect  circle  and  handed  it 


IS  GENIUS   SELF-CONSCIOUS?  129 

to  the  messenger,  saying,  "Here  is  your 
drawing."  "Am  I  to  have  nothing  but 
this  ?"  the  astonished  envoy  inquired.  The 
artist  quietly  replied:  "That  is  more  than 
enough. " 

In  writing  to  a  dearly  beloved  uncle,  at 
the  time  of  his  greatest  prosperity,  Kaphael 
says:  "I  am  doing  honor  to  you,  to  all  our 
relations,  and  to  our  country." 

When  Cicero  was  questioned  as  to  his  ex- 
traction, he  proudly  replied:  "I  commence 
an  ancestry."  Being  advised  to  change  his 
name  in  order  to  advantage  his  political 
prospects,  he  indignantly  declared:  "I  will 
make  my  name  as  illustrious  as  the  oldest  in 
Rome."  To  his  friend  Attic  us  he  writes: 
' '  You  know  of  what  thunders  1  am  capable. 
I  need  say  the  less  about  them,  since  I  think 
you  must  have  heard  me  there  in  Greece." 
On  another  occasion,  he  confesses  to  the  same 
friend:  "  Moreover,  that  little  strain  of  self- 
conceit  which  is  in  me  (it  is  well  to  know 
one's  faults)  is  gratified.  It  used  to  annoy 
me  to  think  that  the  services  of  the  Grand 
Pasha"  —he  means  Pompey — "to  his  coun- 

9 


130  A    STUDY   OP  GENIUS. 

try  might  seem  greater  to  posterity  than 
mine;  but  I  am  relieved  of  all  anxiety  on 
that  score."  In  referring  to  Mark  Antony, 
he  uses  these  words  :  ' '  Would  he  wish  to 
engage  with  me  in  a  contest  of  eloquence? 
he  would  then  confer  an  obligation  on  me; 
for  what  ampler  field,  what  more  copious 
subject  could  I  desire,  than  opportunity  of 
speaking  on  behalf  of  myself  and  against 
Antony?"  And,  more  significantly  still,  he 
predicts:  "For  all  my  toils  and  pains  I 
have  no  recompense  here;  but  hereafter,  in 
heaven,  among  the  immortal  gods,  I  shall 
look  back  on  my  beloved  city,  and  find  my 
reward  in  seeing  her  made  glorious  by  my 
career." 

Horace  appraises  his  own  achievements  in 
the  following  lines : 

"  I  have  built  a  monument, 
A  monument  more  lasting  than  bronze, 
Soaring  more  high  than  regal  pyramids, 
Which  neither  the  gnawing  rain-drop 
Nor  the  vain  rush  of  the  Boreas  shall  destroy. 
Nor  shall  it  pass  away  with  the  unnumbered 
Series  of  ages  and  the  flight  of  time. 
I  shall  not  wholly  die." 

Being  borne  home  from  India,  well-nigh 


IS  GENIUS   SELF-CONSCIOUS?  131 

dead  with  disease,  Nelson  confesses :  "I  felt 
impressed  with  a  feeling  that  I  should  never 
rise  in  my  profession.  .  .  .  After  a  long 
and  gloomy  reverie,  in  which  I  almost 
wished  myself  overboard,  a  sudden  glow  of 
patriotism  was  kindled  within  me.  and  pre- 
sented my  king  and  country  as  my  patron. 
Well,  then,  I  exclaimed,  I  will  be  a  hero! 
and  confiding  in  Providence,  I  will  brave 
every  danger."  Again,  complaining  of  the 
omission  of  his  name  from  the  London 
Gazette  for  meritorious  conduct  at  Toulon 
and  the  siege  of  Calvi,  he  exclaimed :  "  They 
have  not  done  me  justice;  but  never  mind, 
I'll  have  a  gazette  of  my  own.1'  And  his 
dying  exclamation  at  the  victory  of  Trafalgar 
was,  "  Thank  God,  I  have  done  my  duty  ! " 

Correggio  is  said  to  have  exclaimed,  when 
viewing  for  the  first  time  a  picture  by 
Raphael,  "  I  also  am  a  painter." 

Titian  expostulated  against  the  proposi- 
tion to  destroy  Correggio' s  masterpiece,  the 
"Assumption  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,"  in  the 
words,  "If  I  were  not  Titian,  I  should  cer- 
tainly wish  to  be  Correggio. " 


132  A   STUDY  OF  GENIUS. 

One  of  the  two  portraits  carved  upon 
the  shield  of  Minerva  in  the  Parthenon,  by 
Phidias,  was  that  of  himself.  Macready,  the 
noted  English  tragedian,  pronounced  his  OAvn 
acting  of  Macbeth  "  a  noble  piece  of  art." 

Carlyle  wrote  in  his  journal,  upon  the  com- 
pletion of  his  first  book  of  the  "French  Rev- 
olution:" "  It  has  become  clear  to  me  that  I 
have  honestly  more  force  and  faculty  in  me 
than  belongs  to  the  most  I  see.  It  was 
always  clear  that  no  honestly  exerted  force 
can  be  utterly  lost.  Were  it  long  years  after 
I  am  dead,  in  regions  far  distant  from  this, 
under  names  far  different  from  thine,  the 
seed  thou  sowest  will  spring." 

Macaulay,  comparing  himself  with  certain 
prominent  members  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, writes:  "I  may  say  without  vanity 
that  I  have  made  speeches  which  were  out  of 
the  reach  of  any  of  them."  Of  his  magazine 
articles  he  wrote:  "  My  reviews  are  thought 
to  be  better  written,  and  they  certainly 
live  longer,  than  the  reviews  of  most  other 
people;  and  this  ought  to  content  me."  And 
again:  "If  I  live  twelve  or  fifteen  years,  I 


IS   GENIUS   SELF-CONSCIOUS?  133 

may  perhaps  produce  something  which  I 
may  not  be  afraid  to  exhibit  side  by  side 
with  the  performances  of  the  old  masters." 

Albert  Durer  complacently  remarked, 
when  reviewing  his  own  work,  "  It  can  not 
be  better  done." 

"There  are  only  three  writers  of  the 
French  language,"  said  Balzac — "Victor 
Hugo,  Theophile  Gautier,  and  myself." 

Pitt,  afterward  Lord  Chatham,  did  not 
blush  to  affirm,  "I  am  sure  that  I  can  save 
this  country,  and  that  nobody  else  can." 

Enraged  at  the  failure  he  made  in  his 
first  oratorical  effort  in  Parliament,  Sheridan 
swore,  "  I  have  it  in  me,  and,  by  God,  it 
shall  come  out!" 

The  Duke  of  Wellington  styled  Waterloo 
"a  battle  of  giants." 

Undiscouraged  by  the  meager  apprecia- 
tion the  public  extended  to  his  "Madoc," 
Southey  predicted:  "  I  shall  be  read  by  pos- 
terity, if  I  am  not  read  now;  read  with  Mil- 
ton, and  Virgil,  and  Dante,  when  poets  whose 
works  are  now  selling  by  thousands  are 
only  known  through  a  bibliographical  dic- 
tionary." 

8 


134  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

Prince  Metternick,  the  great  Chancellor  of 
Francis  I.  of  Austria,  wrote :  "If  anyone 
wishes  to  write  my  history,  let  him  have  full 
freedom  to  the  judgment  of  posterity,  which 
alone  can  speak  with  authority  of  the  men 
who  have  contributed  to  make  the  history 
of  their  time." 

All  are  familiar  with  Cardinal  Wolsey's 
presumptuous  utterance,  "Ego  et  rexmeus" 
(I  and  my  king). 

Milton,  directly  after  his  visit  to  Italy, 
confessed  that  he  began  to  entertain  the  con- 
viction that  he  "might  perhaps  leave  some- 
thing so  written  to  af  tertimes  as  they  should 
not  willingly  let  it  die." 

Swift,  then  in  his  decline,  one  day,  laying 
his  hand  upon  his  "  Tale  of  a  Tub,"  gasped, 
"What  a  genius  I  had  when  I  wrote  that 
book!" 

During  the  siege  of  Paris,  Victor  Hugo  is 
said  to  have  declared  to  his  family:  "To- 
morrow I  will  go  forth  on  to  the  ramparts;  I 
will  allow  myself  to  be  killed  by  a  bullet; 
the  Prussians  will  have  killed  Victor  Hugo, 
and  the  war  will  be  at  an  end." 


IS  GENIUS  SELF-CONSCIOUS?  136 

Goethe  confessed:  "If  I  were  to  say  what 
I  had  really  been  to  the  Germans  in  general, 
and  to  the  young  German  poets  in  particular, 
I  should  say  I  had  been  their  liberator." 
Again:  "As  for  what  I  have  done  as  a  poet, 
I  take  no  pride  in  it  whatever;  but  that  in 
my  century  I  am  the  only  person  who  knows 
the  truth  in  the  difficult  science  of  colors— 
of  that,  I  say,  I  am  not  a  little  proud.  There 
I  have  a  consciousness  of  superiority  to 
many."  And,  crowning  all,  he  claims:  "All 
I  have  had  to  do,  I  have  done  in  kingly 
fashion." 

Chateaubriand  graciously  allowed:  "Lord 
Byron  will  live;  whether  as  a  child  of  his 
age,  like  me,  he  has  expressed,  like  me,  and 
like  Goethe  before  us  both,  passion  and 
wretchedness;  and  whether  my  peregrina- 
tions and  the  poop-lantern  of  my  Gallic  bark 
have  pointed  out  the  track  to  the  vessel  of 
Albion  upon  unexplored  seas." 

Metternich  puts  into  Napoleon's  mouth 
these  words:  "They  call  me  lucky  because  I 
am  able;  it  is  weak  men  who  accuse  the 
strong  of  good  fortune."  To  Josephine  he 


136  A   STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

said,  while  standing  in  the  palace  of  the 
Tuileries:  "  Behold  a  place  without  nobles; 
in  time  I  intend  to  render  it  worthy  of  his 
palace  who  is  yet  to  become  the  master  and 
arbiter  of  the  world." 

When  Alexander  was  desired  by  his  royal 
father  to  run  for  the  foot-racer's  prize  in  the 
Olympian  games,  he  proudly  answered:  "I 
will,  if  I  may  run  with  kings." 

Daniel  Webster,  when  he  was  reminded  by 
the  court  that  a  certain  opinion  of  his  run 
counter  to  that  of  the  hallowed  Lord  Cam- 
den,  replied:  "But,  may  it  please  your 
Honor,  /differ  from  Lord  Camden." 

Voltaire  is  reported  as  having  declared: 
"  I  am  tired  of  hearing  it  repeated  that  twelve 
men  were  sufficient  to  found  Christianity; 
I  will  show  the  world  that  one  is  sufficient  to 
destroy  it." 

.  Thucydides,  speaking  of  his  own  writing, 
uses  these  words:  "It  is  composed  so  as  to 
be  regarded  as  a  possession  forever,  rather 
than  as  a  prize  declamation  intended  only 
for  the  present." 

Xenophon  applied  to  himself  the  encomi- 


IS  GENIUS  SELF-CONSCIOUS?  137 

urn,  "as  eminent  among  the  Greeks  for  elo- 
quence as  Alexander  was  for  arms." 

In  a  letter  written  in  1881,  Ruskin  says: 
"  Had  you  ever  read  ten  words  of  mine  with 
understanding,  you  would  have  known  that 
I  care  no  more  for  Mr.  Disraeli  or  Mr.  Glad- 
stone than  for  two  old  bagpipes  with  their 
drones  going  by  steam;  but  that  I  hate  all 
Liberalism  as  I  do  Beelzebub,  and  that,  with 
Carlyle,  I  stand — we  two  alone  now  in  Eng- 
land— for  God  and  the  Queen."  When  he 
learned  that  Mazzini  had  declared  that  he 
(Ruskin)  had  "the  most  analytic  mind  in 
Europe,"  he  remarked  that  it  was  "an  opin- 
ion in  which,  so  far  as  I  am  acquainted  with 
Europe,  I  am  myself  entirely  disposed  to 
concur."  Again,  he  says:  "If,  in  Wales, 
my  father  and  mother  had  given  me  but  a 
shaggy  scrap  of  a  Welsh  pony,  and  left  me 
in  charge  of  a  good  Welsh  guide  and  his 
wife,  if  I  needed  any  coddling,  they  would 
have  made  a  man  of  me  then  and  there,  and 
afterward  the  comfort  of  their  own  hearts, 
and  probably  the  first  geologist  of  my  time 
in  Europe." 


138  A  STUDY   OF 

Pope,  in  the  maturity  of  his  fame,  wrote: 

11  Town  I'm  proud — I  must  be  proud,  to  see 
Men  not  afraid  of  God  afraid  of  me." 

The  testimony  thus  far  presented  will,  per- 
haps, be  considered  quite  sufficient  for  set- 
ting forth  the  self-conscious  aspect  of  genius; 
and,  in  absence  of  all  evidence  to  the  con- 
trary, would,  doubtless,  incline  us  to  the  be- 
lief that  self-esteem  is  one  of  the  inseparable 
flaws  of  the  genuine  stone.  We  shall  now 
proceed  to  exhibit  some  specimens  of  genius, 
equally  as  rare  and  pure  as  any  that  have 
already  been  presented,  who  are  quite,  if  not 
entirely,  free  from  the  blemish  of  self -con- 
sciousness. 

But  before  introducing  the  witnesses  in 
person,  we  will  produce  a  few  opinions  of 
certain  well-known  genius  experts. 

Carlyle  says:  "On  the  whole,  'genius  is 
ever  a  secret  to  itself;'  of  this  old  truth  we 
have,  on  all  sides,  daily  evidence.  Shakes- 
peare takes  no  airs  for  writing  Hamlet  and 
the  Tempest;  understands  not  that  it  is  any- 
thing surprising."  And  again:  "All  great- 
ness is  unconscious,  or  it  is  little  and 
naught." 


IS   GENIUS   SELF-CONSCIOUS?  139 

The  same  tone  is  maintained  by  Hazlitt  in 
his  "Table  Talk."  He  affirms:  "No  really 
great  man  ever  thought  himself  so.  He  who 
comes  up  to  his  own  idea  of  greatness,  must 
always  have  had  a  very  low  standard  of  it  in 
his  mind.  The  definition  of  genius  is  that 
it  acts  unconsciously;  and  those  who  have 
produced  immortal  works,  have  done  so 
without  knowing  how  or  why.  Whatever  is 
done  best,  is  done  from  the  natural  bent  and 
disposition  of  the  mind.  It  is  only  where 
our  incapacity  begins,  that  we  begin  to  feel 
the  obstacles,  and  to  set  an  undue  value  on 
our  triumph  over  them.  Vandyck's  excel- 
lence consisted  in  this,  that  he  could  paint  a 
fine  portrait  of  anyone  at  sight."  As  ex- 
amples of  this  characteristic  of  genius,  he 
names  Rembrandt,  Correggio,  Cervantes,  and 
Shakespeare. 

And  now  for  our  witnesses  to  the  truth 
that  genius  is  unconscious  of  its  extraordi- 
nary powers  and  performances. 

Wfren  Newton — then  thirty  years  of  age, 
and  who  had  already  discovered  the  different 
refrangibility  of  light,  had  invented  the  re- 


140  A    STUDY    OF  GENIUS. 

fleeting  telescope,  had  deduced  the  law  of 
gravity,  and  had  discovered  the  method  of 
fluxions — was  proposed  as  a  fellow  of  the 
Royal  Society,  he  said  to  the  secretary  that 
he  hoped  he  would  be  elected,  in  which  case 
"he  would  endeavor  to  testify  his  gratitude 
by  communicating  what  his  poor  and  solitary 
endeavors  could  effect  toward  the  promoting 
of  their  philosophical  design."  And  later 
still,  when  near  the  close  of  his  singularly 
affluent  career,  he  is  reported  as  having  con- 
fessed: "  I  seem  to  myself  like  a  child  play- 
ing on  the  sea-shore,  and  picking  up  here 
and  there  a  curious  shell  or  a  pretty  pebble, 
while  the  boundless  ocean  of  Truth  lies  un- 
discovered before  me." 

Virgil  is  recorded  to  have  ordered,  on  his 
death-bed,  that  the  JSneid  be  burnt,  because 
he  did  not  think  it  sufficiently  finished  for 
publication. 

Tasso  remodeled,  and  thereby  injured,  his 
"  Gierusalemme  Liberata,"  solemnly  declar- 
ing, at  last:  ' '  Did  not  the  circumstances  of 
my  situation  compel  me,  I  would  not  print 
it,  even,  perhaps,  during  my  life,  I  so  much 
doubt  of  its  success." 


IS  GENIUS   SELF-CONSCIOUS?  141 

When  Cardinal  Farnese  found  Michael 
Angelo,  then  an  octogenarian,  alone,  gazing 
raptly  upon  the  Coliseum,  the  latter  ex- 
plained: "I  yet  go  to  school  that  I  may 
learn  something." 

Sir  Walter  Scott  was  quite  free  from 
vanity,  and  declared,  in  his  diary,  that  no 
one  contemned  the  "pap"  of  praise  more 
heartily  than  himself. 

Charles  Darwin,  referring  in  his  later  days 
to  the  notice  given  him  when  a  youth  by 
certain  eminent  scientists,  says:  "  I  was  not 
aware  of  any  such  superiority;  and  I  remem- 
ber one  of  my  sporting  friends,  Turner,  who 
saw  me  at  work  with  my  beetles,  saying  that 
I  should  one  day  be  a  fellow  of  the  Royal 
Society,  and  the  notion  seemed  to  me  pre- 
posterous." Alluding  to  his  scientific  labors 
on  the  famous  expedition  of  the  Beagle 
around  the  globe,  he  modestly  confesses: 
' '  But  I  was  also  ambitious  to  take  a  fair  place 
among  scientific  men — whether  more  ambi- 
tious or  less  so  than  most  of  my  fellow-work- 
ers, I  can  form  no  opinion."  Upon  reading 
one  of  the  numbers  of  Spencer's  "Principles 


142  A   STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

of  Biology,"  he  observes:  ' '  I  feel  rather  mean 
when  I  read  him.  I  could  bear,  and  rather 
enjoy,  feeling  that  he  was  twice  as  ingenious 
and  clever  as  myself;  but  when  I  feel  that 
he  is  about  a  dozen  times  my  superior, 
even  in  the  master  art  of  wriggling,  I  feel 
aggrieved." 

Resting  here,  it  will  doubtless  appear  that, 
as  respects  both  opinions  and  examples,  we 
have  made  a  decidedly  ill-balanced  presenta- 
tion of  the  question  as  to  whether  genius  is 
self-conscious  or  not.  The  fault,  however, 
if  it  be  such,  is  due,  we  claim,  to  no  par- 
tiality of  ours,  but  to  the  very  one-sided 
nature  of  the  subject  itself.  For,  howsoever 
many  more  opinions  a  more  industrious  or 
more  wide-ranging  collector  than  ourself 
might  adduce,  each  attested  by  its  one  or 
more  examples,  they  would,  we  are  satisfied, 
simply  select  one  side  or  the  other  of  the  ques- 
tion, in  about  the  same  ratio  of  preponderance 
as  characterizes  those  already  presented. 
This  being  so,  the  conclusion  is  unavoidable 
that  geniuses  are  almost,  if  not  quite,  uni- 
versally self-conscious  of  their  extraordinary 


IS   GENIUS   SELF-CONSCIOUS?  143 

powers  and  of  the  superior  quality  of  their 
works.  The  small  minority  of  apparent 
exceptions  to  this  rule  owe  their  singularity, 
we  would  suggest,  not  to  the  fact  that  they 
are  ignorant  of  their  unusual  endowments, 
but  rather  that  they  are  less  self-assertive  of 
those  rare  powers,  and  less  fond  of  popular 
recognition  of  them,  than  are  the  majority 
—those  of  the  pronouncedly  self-conscious 
order. 

In  fine,  we  submit,  it  is  not  a  question  of 
self-consciousness  at  all — all  geniuses  being 
alike,  or  nearly  alike,  cognizant  of  their  in- 
trinsic superiority;  but  simply  a  matter  of 
the  relative  degree  of  personal  insistance  with 
which  that  sense  of  singularity  is  manifested 
to  the  world.  The  few  have  been  content  to 
live  upon  the  self-knowledge  of  their  great- 
ness and  the  assurance  that  their  work  was 
of  a  unique  and  enduring  quality;  but  the 
many,  in  addition  to  this  subjective  satis- 
faction, have  demanded  the  meed  of  public 
recognition,  and  rather  than  forego  it,  have 
not  hesitated  to  warm  their  own  palms  in 
augmenting,  if  not  starting  the  clamor  of 
their  applause. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  ACCIDENTS. 

Verified  by  Incidents  in  tfie  Lives  of  Cumer,  Galileo,  Newton, 
Handel,  Haydn,  Schubert,  SJiakespeare,  Claude  Loii-aine, 
Gibbon,  Giotto,  Rubens,  Cowper,  Milton,  Burns,  Mabillon, 
Wallenstein,  Pisano,  Beetfioven,  Cromwell,  Walton,  Cow- 
ley,  Molicre,  Franklin,  Ignatius  Loyola,  Rousseau,  La 
Fontaine,  West,  Jenny  Lind,  Nilsson,  Linnmis,  Canova, 
Longfellow. 

It  is  a  fairly  debatable  question,  whether, 
if  certain  apparently  trivial  accidents  had 
not  occurred,  many  who  now  blaze  as  gen- 
iuses in  the  world's  intellectual  sky,  would 
have  ever  appeared  above  the  horizon.  In 
physics,  we  know  there  is  what  is  called 
latent  energy.  No  one  would  suspect  that 
hard,  dull-colored  stone,  familiarly  known 
as  a  flint,  of  being  a  natural  store-house  of 
light  and  heat.  Sudden  contact,  however, 
with  some  other  hard  body,  reveals  the  sur- 
prising truth.  What  awful  power  this  mere 
thimbleful  of  harmless-looking  black  grains 
develops  when  ignited  by  a  blow  or  a 
spark ! 


146  A    STUDY   OP   GENIUS. 

In  like  manner  do  we  find  genius  coiled  up 
or  stored  away  in  persons  whose  exteriors 
give  no  intimation  whatever  of  the  fact. 
Indeed,  it  is  very  probable  that  they  them- 
selves are  as  unaware  of  their  dormant  pos- 
session as  the  flint  is  of  its  unprovoked  fire. 
Accident,  however — the  merest  accident — 
brings  them  one  day  in  contact  with  the 
spark  of  an  igniting  eye,  or  the  touch  of  a 
magnetic  hand,  and  suddenly  there  is  re- 
vealed to  the  astonished  world  the  light,  the 
heat,  and  the  electric  fervor  of  a  genius.  It 
can  not  be  claimed  that  the  mere  incident 
which  sprung  the  coil  or  struck  out  the 
spark  was  also  creative  of  the  forces  thus  set 
free;  and  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  had  not 
the  incident  occurred,  who  shall  say  that 
any  such  forces  would  have  ever  been  liber- 
ated? 

It  shall  be  the  aim  of  this  chapter  to  note 
some  of  the  seemingly  trivial,  but  really 
potential,  incidents  that  have  accompanied 
the  advent  of  genius. 

The  meeting  with  a  copy  of  Gesner's  His- 
tory of  Animals  and  Serpents,  with  colored 


THE   INFLUENCE  OF   AOOIDENTS.        147 

plates,  is  said  to  have  been  the  key  that 
opened  the  door  of  Cuvier's  preference  for 
natural  history.  The  presence  of  Guido 
Uhaldi  in  the  little  audience  that  listened  to 
Galileo' s  first  essay,  "  The  Hydrostatic  Bal- 
ance," proved  in  no  small  degree  the  mak- 
ing of  his  future  career  as  a  scientist;  for  it 
was  alone  through  the  powerful  influence  of 
this  appreciative  patron  that  the  young 
philosopher  secured  the  chair  of  mathemat- 
ics at  Pisa,  and  later  a  similar  honor  in  the 
University  of  Padua.  Subsequently,  a  thing 
of  daily  occurrence  and  observation  —  the 
swinging  of  the  great  pendant  lamps  of  the 
cathedral — suggested  to  his  inductive  intel- 
lect his  law  of  oscillation. 

If  accounts  be  true,  Sir  Isaac  Newton's 
career  affords  quite  a  series  of  illustrations 
of  the  point  we  are  now  considering.  It  is 
said  that  a  kick  in  the  stomach,  received 
from  an  overbearing  and  much  stronger 
school-fellow,  proved  Isaac's  first  impetus  to 
early  mental  application.  Later  on,  his  un- 
cle, a  village  rector,  discovered  Isaac  seated 
under  a  hedge,  so  completely  absorbed  in 


148  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

the  solution  of  a  mathematical  problem  as 
not  to  notice  his  approach.  This  at  once 
decided  him  to  intercede  for  his  nephew's 
return  to  school.  He  was  successful,  and 
Isaac  escaped  from  his  thralldom  of  farm 
labor  to  resume  the  delightful  duties  of  a 
student.  Then,  years  after,  happened  that 
well-known  incident  of  the  falling  apple, 
which  suggested  to  his  alert  and  thoughtful 
mind  the  fundamental  principle  of  his  sys- 
tem of  the  universe. 

A  voluntary  upon  the  chapel  organ,  then 
in  charge  of  his  uncle,  surreptitiously  played 
by  the  boy  George  Frederick  Handel,  decided 
that  his  future  studies  should  conform  to  his 
own  taste — music — instead  of  the  law,  that 
uncongenial  one  chosen  for  him  by  his  father. 
His  cousin  Frank,  a  school-master,  noticing 
the  precision  of  the  six-year-old's  time-beat- 
ing, gave  Haydn  his  first  opportunity  to 
study  music.  The  persistent  visits  that 
Schubert  made,  when  seven  years  old,  with  a 
companion,  to  a  piano  warehouse,  awakened 
himself  and  friends  to  a  realization  of  the 
unique  faculty  for  music  he  possessed. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  ACCIDENTS.        149 

Whatever  the  cause  of  Shakespeare's  sud- 
den flight  from  Stratford  to  London  may  have 
been,  it  is  very  probable  that  English  drama 
would  have  lacked  its  crown  jewels  had 
young  William  been  an  exemplary  citizen  of 
his  native  town.  And  surely  the  petty  theft 
of  a  deer,  if  that  it  was,  may  be  pardoned 
the  youthful  scapegrace,  in  view  of  the 
splendid  and  imperishable  riches  his  ma- 
turer  years  lavished  upon  mankind. 

Claude  Lorraine,  after  trying  divers  sorts 
of  service  and  finding  himself  suited  to  none, 
accidentally  hired  himself  to  a  painter,  and 
thereby  hit  upon  the  one  thing  that  Nature 
had  designed  him  to  do  in  such  splendid 
manner  as  no  one  had  ever  before  acquired. 
It  was  while  musing  amid  the  ruins  of  Rome 
that  Gibbon's  life-work  whispered  itself  to 
his  mind's  ear.  It  would  seem  that  Giotto, 
one  of  the  most  original  and  comprehensive 
of  the  great  Italian  artists,  owed  his  entire 
career  to  the  simple  circumstance  that,  when 
a  shepherd  lad,  he  was  one  day  found  by 
Cimabue,  a  discerning  and  philanthropic 

artist,  drawing  the  picture  of  a  sheep  upon  a 
10 


150  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

stone  with  a  pointed  rock.  The  praise  that 
Otto  Van  Veen,  the  most  celebrated  painter 
of  Flanders,  bestowed  upon  one  of  the  little 
boy's  pictures,  decided  Rubens'  parents  to 
permit  their  son  to  follow  his  natural  bent. 
When  Cowper  asked  Lady  Austen  to  fur- 
nish him  with  a  subject  for  a  poem  in  blank 
verse,  she  pleasantly  replied:  "O,  you  can 
never  be  in  want  of  a  subject;  you  can  write 
upon  any;  write  upon  this  sofa."  And  thus 
originated  "The  Task." 

When  Ell  wood,  a  learned  Quaker,  was 
asked  by  Milton  how  he  liked  ' '  Paradise 
Lost,"  which  the  poet  had  lent  him  in  man- 
uscript, he  replied:  "  I  like  it  much.  Thou 
hast  written  well,  and  said  much  of  '  Para- 
dise Lost ; '  but  what  hast  thou  to  say  of  Par- 
adise found?"  Sometime  afterward,  when 
Ellwood  visited  the  poet  in  London,  he  was 
shown  the  poem  of  "Paradise  Regained," 
and  told:  "  This  is  owing  to  you;  for  you  put 
it  into  my  head  by  the  question  you  asked 
me  at  Charlfont,  which  before  I  had  not 
thought  of." 

Burns  declared  that  the  first  stirrings  of 


THE   INFLUENCE   OF    ACCIDENTS.        151 

his  enthusiasm  are  to  be  attributed  to  a  life 
of  Hannibal  which  he  read  when  a  boy. 
And  it  is  doubtful  if  the  name  of  Burns  had 
ever  penetrated  beyond  the  limits  of  his 
native  shire,  had  not  a  copy  of  his  first 
modest  volume  of  poems  caught  the  eye  of 
the  genius-detecting  Dr.  Blacklock,  who, 
in  lauding  the  poet's  effort,  lamented  that 
he  was  not  then  present  in  Edinburgh  to 
publish  another  such  volume.  A  letter  con- 
taining this  amiable  regret  fell  into  Burns' 
hands  on  the  eve  of  his  intended  departure 
from  England  for  Jamaica,  and  instantly 
determined  him  to  set  out  for  Edinburgh. 

Mabillon  at  twenty-six  years  of  age  is 
said  to  have  been  but  little  removed  from  an 
idiot;  but  at  that  time  he  chanced  to  fall 
down  a  stone  staircase,  and  so  badly  injured 
his  skull  that  it  had  to  be  trepanned.  The 
operation  proved  phenomenally  successful; 
for  from  that  time  forward  he  displayed  the 
characteristics  of  a  genius.  The  great  Bohe- 
mian general,  Wallenstein,  was  regarded  in 
his  youth  as  a  fool,  until  the  day  he  tumbled 
out  of  a  window.  Immediately  thereupon 


152  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

he  began  to  display  extraordinary  ability. 
It  was  to  the  mere  chance  of  seeing  the  Pisan 
sarcophagus  that  Nicola  Pisano  owed  his 
subsequent  renown  as  the  regenerator  of 
mediaeval  art  in  general,  and  of  sculpture 
in  particular. 

No  doubt  it  was  a  great  disappointment  to 
the  Viennese  to  learn  that  their  favorite  pian- 
ist— indeed,  the  foremost  musical  virtuoso  of 
the  day — had,  after  a  brief  triumph  of  live 
years,  gone  hopelessly  deaf.  It  was  a  still 
keener  disappointment  to  Beethoven  him- 
self, who  by  nature  was  eminently  fitted  to 
enjoy  and  also  to  ennoble  society  and  his 
art.  But  it  is  not  at  all  certain  that,  had  he 
not  been  thus  cruelly,  as  it  seemed,  banished 
from  the  concert-room  and  the  salon,  human 
ears  would  ever  have  been  delighted  with 
the  transcendent  beauties  of  "Fidelio,"  the 
' '  Er oica ' '  symphony,  ' '  Egmont, ' '  the  ' '  Pas- 
toral" symphony,  the  "Mass  in  C,"  the 
"Seventh  Symphony,"  and  others  of  his 
monumental  works. 

It  had  been  well  for  Charles  I.  had  the 
order  of  council  which  prevented  a  certain 


THE  INFLUENCE  OP  ACCIDENTS.        153 

vessel  leaving  England  in  1637,  never  been 
issued;  for  among  its  passengers  were  both 
Cromwell  and  Hampden.  Sorrow  at  the 
death  of  his  wife  and  children,  caused  a 
humble  hosier  of  London  to  seek  the  tran- 
quility  and  solace  of  a  rural  home;  and  so 
English  literature  gathered  into  its  net  the 
' '  Complete  Angler. ' '  Cowley  affirms  that  it 
was  Spenser's  "Faerie  Queen  "  that  ignited 
the  poetic  fire  in  his  own  bosom.  Moliere 
came  to  find  his  own  enviable  role  in  life  by 
accompanying,  when  a  boy,  his  grandfather 
to  the  theater.  The  reading  of  DeFoe's 
"Essay  on  Projects"  largely  shaped  Frank- 
lin's career;  and  the  idea  of  instituting  a 
new  religious  order  was  first  suggested  to 
Ignatius  Loyola  by  the  perusal  of  "Lives  of 
the  Saints."  The  offering  of  a  prize  for  an 
essay  proved  the  initiative  impulse  in  the 
life  of  Rousseau;  while  La  Fontaine  had  his 
own  peculiar  genius  revealed  to  him  while 
gazing  into  the  crystal  depths  of  Malherbe's 
poems.  Surely,  genius  never  signaled  her 
votary  in  a  sweeter  fashion  than  in  the  case 
of  Benjamin  West,  who  declared,  "  A  kiss 
from  my  mother  made  me  an  artist." 


154  A   STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

A  little  girl  sits  at  the  window  of  a  miser- 
able house  on  an  out-of-the-way  street  in 
Stockholm,  singing  to  her  kitten.  A  lady 
passing  by,  detects  an  unusual  sweetness  in 
the  child's  artless  song;  obtains  control  of 
her,  affords  her  instruction  in  music,  and 
thereby  secures  to  the  musical  world  its 
supreme  nightingale — Jenny  Lind.  In  the 
midst  of  that  motley  Scandinavian  crowd  at 
a  fair  is  a  slender  maiden,  whose  singing  of 
her  native  melodies  captivates  every  ear  and 
loosens  not  a  few  purse-strings.  Among  her 
auditors  there  chances  to  be  a  certain  man 
of  means  and  philanthropic  bent,  who  deter- 
mines to  give  the  young  minstrel  an  oppor- 
tunity for  study  in  her  favorite  art.  How 
sound  his  judgment  was  is  attested  by  the 
glorious  outcome — Christine  Mlsson. 

The  advice  and  influence  of  a  physician 
who  detected  the  boy's  natural  fondness  for 
botany,  caused  Linnaeus  to  be  snatched 
from  a  shoemaker's  shop,  where  his  father 
had  placed  him.  In  the  palace  of  a  noble 
family  at  Venice  a  banquet  is  being  pre- 
pared. A  crowning  ornament  for  the  table 


THE    INFLUENCE  OF   ACCIDENTS.        155 

is  all  that  is  wanting.  A  stone-cutter,  con- 
veniently near  by,  is  applied  to,  and  Ms 
grandson — a  mere  lad — standing  by  his  side, 
overhears  the  proposition.  "Give  me  a 
plate  of  cold  butter,"  cries  the  boy.  Out  of 
this  with  astonishing  rapidity  and  dexterity 
he  models  a  lion,  so  life-like  in  form  and 
posture  as  to  thrill  with  pleasure  the  assem- 
bled guests.  This  instantly  wins  for  him 
the  favor  and  patronage  of  the  noble  house, 
and  eventually  gives  to  the  world  of  art  the 
masterful  Canova. 

One  of  the  most  popular  and  significant 
poems  of  American  literature  owes  its  exist- 
ence to  the  accident  of  its  author  chancing, 
one  evening,  to  hit  upon  the  word  "Excel- 
sior," printed  upon  a  bit  of  newspaper. 


CHAPTER  X. 

IS   GENIUS   HEREDITARY? 

The  Popular  Belief  that  Genius  is  not  Hereditary. — Synopsis 
of  Galton's  Work  on  "Hereditary  Genius." — Grant  Allen'* 
Opinion  Favoring  t/ie  Same  View. — Criticism  of  said  Opin- 
ion.— TJie  Contrast  between  the  Biases  of  Geniuses  and  those 
of  their  Parents. — Geniuses  whose  Biases  Jiate  been  Similar 
to  tJiose  of  their  Parents. — Preponderance  of  the  Former 
Instances. — Only  Mediocre  Abilities,  or,  at  best,  Talents, 
Transmitted. — Comparative  Inferiority  of  the  GJiildren  of 
Geniuses. — Geniuses  eit/ier  do  not  Marry,  or  else  have  but 
few  Children. — Opinions  of  Francis  Bacon  and  Charles 
Morris  on  these  Points. — Examples  of  the  Foregoing  Scien- 
tific Reason  for  tJie  Infertility  of  Geniuses. — Summary 
Favoring  the  Soundness  of  the  Popular  Belief. 

If  the  question,  Is  genius  hereditary  f 
were  put  to  a  popular  vote,  we  doubt  not  it 
would  be  decided  almost  unanimously  in  the 
negative.  It  has  been  customary  all  through 
the  past  to  regard  genius  as  something  es- 
sentially phenomenal,  and  its  possessor  as 
one  without  either  satisfactory  antecedents 
or  consequents  —  a  InnncBd  borealis  —  a 
unique,  a  sublimely  isolated  being.  Of  late, 
however,  some  have  thought  that  genius,  no 
less  than  all  other  manifestations  of  human 

067) 


158  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

nature,  must  submit  itself  as  a  proper  sub- 
ject for  scientific  analysis  and  definition. 
Just  as  the  features  of  one's  face,  the  char- 
acteristics of  his  physique,  his  peculiar  bod- 
ily movements  and  intonations  of  voice  may 
be  traced  backward  to  more  or  less  similar 
physical  traits  in  his  ancestors,  and  also  for- 
ward to  like  peculiarities  in  his  posterity,  so 
is  it  claimed  by  some  that,  in  conformity 
with  the  same  inexorable  law  of  heredity, 
the  idiosyncrasies  of  mind  of  one  whom  we 
call  a  genius  can  be  discovered  in  the  mental 
constitutions  both  of  those  who  have  pre- 
ceded and  those  who  have  succeeded  him  in 
the  genealogical  chain.  Of  such  a  belief  is 
Francis  Galton,  who  has  written  an  elabo- 
rate work  upon  the  subject  of  ' '  Hereditary 
Genius."  He  says:  "The  arguments  by 
which  I  endeavor  to  prove  that  genius  is 
hereditary  consist  in  showing  how  large  is 
the  number  of  instances  in  which  men  who 
are  more  or  less  illustrious  have  eminent 
kinsfolk." 

In  selecting  these  instances,  however,  it  is 
a  remarkable  fact  that  he  restricts  himself 


IS  GENIUS   HEREDITARY  ?  159 

mainly  to  such  classes  of  distinguished  men 
as  judges,  statesmen,  and  military  men,  con- 
cerning whom  he  makes  the  following  ad- 
missions: "The  average  ability  of  a  judge 
can  not  be  rated  as  equal  to  that  of  the 
lower  of  the  two  grades  [extraordinary  gen- 
iuses and  illustrious  personages]  I  have  de- 
scribed;" and  secondly:  "Unquestionably, 
the  most  illustrious  statesmen  and  command- 
ers belong,  to  say  the  least,  to  the  classes 
F  and  Gr  [sixth  and  seventh  grades]  of  abil- 
ity." Did  the  first  of  these  admissions  need 
any  strengthening,  we  might  cite  the  opinion 
of  one  who  was  himself  an  eminent  British 
barrister  and  critic,  T.  N.  Talfourd,  who  has 
declared:  "For  the  highest  powers  of  the 
mind  which  can  be  developed  in  eloquence, 
even  a  superior  court  rarely  affords  room." 
And  again:  "The  majority  of  successful 
advocates  are  not  men  of  genius." 

The  most,  we  think,  that  Galton  succeeds 
in  accomplishing,  may  be  summed  up  as  fol- 
lows: Drawing  his  examples  for  the  greater 
part  from  men  occupying,  according  to  his 
own  classification,  a  third  or  lower  rank  in 


160  A   STUDY    OF   GENIFS. 

the  scale  of  extraordinary  abilities,  he  shows 
one  hundred  and  nine  out  of  two  hundred 
and  eighty-six  judges  of  England,  between 
the  years  1660-1865  inclusive,  to  have  had 
one  or  more  eminent  relatives.  However,  the 
only  really  well-known  men  out  of  the  whole 
number  do  not  exceed  a  dozen,  viz.:  the 
Blackstones,  the  Erskines,  the  Jeffreys,  the 
Norths,  two  of  each,  and  the  Herberts,  of 
whom  there  were  three. 

Out  of  some  seventy  names  of  so-called 
eminent  statesmen  who  had  one  or  more 
equally  eminent  relatives,  the  following  sev- 
enteen are  the  most  prominent:  Boling- 
broke,  Canning,  Disraeli,  Fox,  Grattan, 
Palmerston,  Peel,  Pitt,  Sheridan,  Walpole, 
Wilberforce,  Adams,  Lord  Burleigh,  Duke 
of  Guise,  Mirabeau,  Sir  Thomas  More,  and 
Richelieu. 

Out  of  about  thirty  great  commanders 
named,  not  over  fourteen  need  to  claim  our 
attention,  namely:  Alexander  the  Great, 
Napoleon  I.,  Julius  Csesar,  Charlemagne, 
Charles  Martel,  Cromwell,  Gustavus  Adol- 
phus,  Hannibal,  Marlborough,  Nelson,  Scipio 
Africanus,  Turenne,  and  Wellington. 


IS   GENIUS   HEREDITARY?  161 

Out  of  about  forty  literary  men,  the  fol- 
lowing are  the  best  known:  Addison, 
Thomas  Arnold,  Bentham,  Boileau,  Bossuet, 
Chateaubriand,  Fenelon,  Fielding,  Grotius, 
Hallam,  Irving,  Lamb,  Lessing,  Macaulay, 
Niebuhr,  the  Scaligers,  Seneca,  Madam  De 
Stael,  Swift,  Sydney. 

Of  nearly  fifty  scientific  men,  the  follow- 
ing are  the  most  conspicuous:  Aristotle, 
Francis  Bacon,  Buffon,  Cuvier,  D'Alembert, 
Davy,  Franklin,  Galileo,  Harvey,  the  Her- 
schels,  Humboldt,  Linnaeus,  Napier,  New- 
ton, Pliny,  Stephenson,  Volta,  Watt. 

Of  twenty-one  poets  named,  these  are  the 
foremost:  JEschylus,  Ariosto,  Aristophanes, 
Byron,  Chaucer,  Coleridge,  Corneille,  Cow- 
per,  Dryden,  Goethe,  Heine,  Milton,  Kacine, 
Tasso,  Lope  de  Vega,  Wordsworth. 

Of  sixteen  musicians,  the  most  illustrious 
are:  Johann  Sebastian  Bach,  Beethoven, 
Haydn,  Mendelssohn,  Meyerbeer,  Mozart, 
and  Palestrina. 

Of  some  twenty  painters,  the  following  are 
the  best  examples:  Correggio,  Eyck,  Claude 
Lorraine,  Murillo,  Raphael,  Tintoretto,  Ten- 

iers,  Titian,  VanDyck,  Paul  Veronese. 
li 


162  A    STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

Out  of  one  hundred  and  ninety- six  emi- 
nent divines,  only  seventeen  are  inter-related, 
and  eight  others  have  remarkable  relation- 
ships. 

Accepting  the  names  as  they  stand,  we 
find,  upon  summing  up  the  foregoing  lists, 
that  out  of  about  four  hundred  and  fifty 
persons  classed  as  eminent,  and  for  the  most 
part  ranging  from  the  third  class  of  such 
downward,  and  all  of  whom  are  claimed  to 
be  more  or  less  intimately  related  to  eminent 
persons,  not  more  than  a  quarter  of  the  num- 
ber will  satisfactorily  answer  to  the  distinc- 
tion of  being  illustrious — that  is,  to  use 
Galton's  own  definition,  "as  one  man  in  a 
million." 

And  the  following  is  a  summary  of  the 
same  author's  attempt  to  point  out  the  in- 
stances of  two  nearly  equally  illustrious 
persons  in  the  same  family.  Of  judges,  the 
most  noteworthy  names  are:  Lord  Erskine 
and  his  brother  Henry;  Sir  Edward  Hyde 
and  his  son  Lawrence;  Sir  Timothy  Lyttle- 
ton  and  his  brother  Edward.  Of  statesmen: 
George  Grenville  and  his  son  William  W. ; 


IS   GENIUS    HEREDITARY  ?  163 

Sir  Robert  Peel  and  son;  William  Pitt 
and  son;  Sir  Robert  and  Horatio  Wai- 
pole,  brothers,  and  the  sons,  Sir  Edward 
and  Horace;  Richard  Wellesley  and  his 
brother,  the  Duke  of  Wellington;  William 
Cecil  and  his  son  Robert,  and  John  Adams 
and  his  son  John  Quincy.  Of  commanders: 
Alexander  and  his  father  Philip;  Hannibal, 
his  father  Hamilcar,  and  his  brother  Has- 
drubal;  Maurice  of  Nassau  and  his  father, 
William  "the  Silent;"  the  Scipios;  Ves- 
pasian and  his  son  Titus;  Henri,  Due  de 
Bouillon,  and  son  Turenne.  Of  literary 
men:  Thomas  and  Matthew  Arnold,  the  Scal- 
igers,  the  brothers  Schlegel,  the  Coleridges, 
and  the  brothers  Corneille.  Of  scientists: 
the  Herschels  and  the  Humboldts.  Of  musi- 
cians: the  Bachs;  Haydn  and  his  brother 
Jean;  Mozart  and  his  father  Leopold.  Of 
painters:  the  brothers  Eyck,  and  the  Teniers, 
father  and  son. 

Now,  even  allowing  to  these  examples  all 
that  is  claimed  for  them,  what  a  mere  frac* 
tion  do  they  constitute  of  the  four  hundred 
extraordinary  geniuses  whom  our  author 


164  A    STUDY    OF  GENIUS. 

assigns  as  the  total  of  the  race's  contribution 
thus  far !  But  when  we  take  account  of 
only  such  as  Galton  himself  ranks  among 
the  very  highest  types  of  genius — those 
possessed  of  the  creative  powers  of  mind— 
the  number  of  such  as  have  been  either  im- 
mediately or  remotely  related  to  others  of 
the  same  grade  of  intellect  is  scarcely  appre- 
ciable. 

Another  writer,  Grant  Allen,  who  would 
seem  to  favor  the  foregoing  view  of  genius 
as  being  hereditary,  has  recently  said:  ' '  Ev- 
ery individual  amongst  human  beings  is  the 
distinct  product  of  two  prior  organisms,  and 
he  combines  elements  found  in  both  of  them, 
and  sometimes  also  elements  latent  in  them, 
but  existing  in  still  earlier  organisms  of  the 
same  species.  In  the  main,  I  suppose  we 
are  all  agreed  that  what  each  man  is,  he  is 
.already  potentially  at  birth;  whatever  little 
can  be  added  by  himself  is  at  best  but  an 
infinitesimal  fraction  compared  with  what  he 
derived  directly  from  his  parents,  or  indi- 
rectly from  his  earlier  ancestry."  In  other 
words,  the  essential  substance  of  geniuses, 


IS   GENIUS   HEREDITARY?  165 

like  that  of  mushrooms  and  other  forms  of 
suddenly-appearing  fungi,  requires  a  rela- 
tively long  period,  and  sometimes  several 
generations,  for  its  complete  production. 

The  least  intelligible  part  of  Mr.  Allen's 
explanation  is,  we  suspect,  the  only  really 
valuable  portion  of  it — we  mean  that  "latent 
element ' '  of  parents,  or  less  near  ancestors, 
which,  it  is  surmised,  enters  into  the  trans- 
mitted nature  of  offspring.  In  other  words, 
our  scientific  analyst  would  signify  that, 
though  geniuses  have,  just  like  all  other  per- 
sons, parents,  of  whose  several  natures  they 
necessarily  partake,  yet  there  also  enters  into 
their  composition  something  unperceived, 
and  only  surmised  as  belonging  to  the  nature 
of  one  or  both  parents  or  remoter  progeni- 
tors. Now,  in  our  own  judgment,  that  latent, 
that  conjectured,  that  unaccountable  ele- 
ment is  genius  itself  under  another  name. 
When  the  chemist  shall  have  demonstrated 
to  us  Jiow  that  two  invisible,  untangible,  im- 
ponderable gases,  oxygen  and  hydrogen,  by 
their  union  form  a  visible,  tangible,  ponder- 
able liquid  called  water,  then,  and  we  ap- 
11 


166  A   STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

prehend  not  until  then,  shall  we  be  prepared 
to  clearly  comprehend  the  biological  pro- 
cesses involved  in  the  genesis  of  a  genius. 
And  until  some  such  convincing  demon- 
stration as  we  have  intimated  shall  be  given, 
people  very  generally  will  continue  to  hold 
to  the  time -honored  belief  that  geniuses  are 
exceptional  developments — inexplicable  orig- 
inals. 

Perhaps  the  fairest  way  of  determining  in 
how  far  geniuses  have  derived  their  peculiar 
endowments  from  their  parents,  will  be  to 
institute  a  comparison  between  the  known 
mental  biases  of  the  two  parties,  as  indicated 
by  their  several  pursuits.  In  speaking  of 
the  parentage  of  great  men,  Lowell,  in  his 
essay  on  Wordsworth,  observes:  "It  is 
rather  to  be  noted  how  little  is  known  of 
the  parentage  of  men  of  the  first  magnitude, 
and  how  often  they  seem  in  some  sort  found- 
lings." Nevertheless,  using  the  data  avail- 
able, much  that  is  interesting  and  valuable 
may  be  adduced. 

Sir  David  Brewster's  father  was  rector  of  a 
grammar  school  and  a  teacher  of  the  classical 


18   GENIUS   HEREDITARY?  167 

languages.  Lord  Nelson's  father  was  a  vil- 
lage parson.  The  parents  of  Gutenberg,  the 
ardent  devotee  to  industrial  pursuits,  were 
mechanic  -  hating  aristocrats.  Pythagoras' 
father  was  a  merchant.  Archimedes'  father 
was  of  royal  extraction  and  high-toned  pre- 
dilections. The  father  of  Buffon,  the  great 
naturalist,  was  a  counselor  of  the  Parlia- 
ment of  Dijon.  Baron  Cuvier's  father  was 
an  officer  in  the  French  military  service. 
Daniel  Webster's  parents  passed  their  lives 
upon  a  farm, 

"  Far  from  the  madding  crowd's  ignoble  strife." 

The  father  of  Laplace,  the  eminent  mathe- 
matician and  astronomer,  was  a  peasant. 
Neither  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton's  parents  was 
in  the  least  degree  remarkable,  and  had  he 
been  ruled  by  his  mother's  preferences,  he 
would  have  died  a  farmer  of  Woolsthorpe, 
instead  of  the  world's  supreme  philosopher. 
The  father  of  Linnaeus  was  pastor  of  a  Lu- 
theran church,  and  neither  appreciated  nor 
approved  of  his  son's  partiality  for  the  study 
of  nature.  Socrates'  father  was  a  sculptor, 
and  his  mother  a  midwife.  Demosthenes' 


168  A   STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

father  was  an  armorer  and  cabinet-maker. 
Columbus'  father  was  a  wool-carder  and 
weaver.  Napoleon  Bonaparte's  father  was  a 
Corsican  magistrate,  whose  profession  was 
that  of  making  and  keeping  peace  among 
men.  Haydn's  father  was  a  wheelwright, 
and  his  mother  a  cook — employments  which, 
neither  singly  nor  together,  would  seem  to 
favor  the  development  of  "a  concord  of 
sweet  sounds."  A  drunken  tenor-singer  was 
Beethoven's  father.  Schubert's  father  and 
forefathers  for  several  generations  were 
schoolmasters.  Schumann's  father  was  a 
book-seller.  Virgil's  father  was  a  farmer, 
and  his  mother  the  daughter  of  a  land- 
holder. An  illiterate  innkeeper  in  a  small 
French  town  was  the  father  of  Rabelais,  the 
great  satirist.  Shakespeare's  father  was  a 
butcher,  or  shop-keeper  of  some  sort,  and 
although  bailiff  and  alderman  of  Stratford, 
was  yet  unable  to  write  his  own  name;  his 
mother  was  a  granddaughter  of  a  valet-de- 
chambre  to  Henry  VII.  Were  these  likely 
parental  factors  for  forming  the  world's 
foremost  dramatic  poet  3  France's  greatest 


IS   GENIUS   HEREDITARY?  169 

comic  poet  of  the  dramatic  order,  Moliere, 
had  an  upholsterer  for  father.  Goethe's  par- 
ents, though  scholarly  and  refined,  did  not 
manifest,  so  far  as  is  known,  any  leaning 
toward  poetry. 

It  is  not  easy  to  see  by  what  hereditary 
process  Milton  derived  his  surpassing  poet- 
ical imagination  from  his  father,  who  fol- 
lowed the  very  prosaic  livelihood  of  a  notary. 
Michael  Angelo  was  descended  from  a  noble 
family — aye,  one  allied  even  to  imperial 
blood.  From  whence,  then,  his  predomi- 
nant taste  and  skill  for  what  was  regarded 
by  his  kin  as  a  plebeian  employment — art  ? 
Two  pious  peasants  who  worked  in  mines 
were  parents  of  that  solar  orb  of  reformers — 
Martin  Luther.  One  of  the  most  eminent  of 
theologians,  Calvin,  had  for  father  a  very 
obscure  notary.  A  family  of  fighting,  ad- 
venture-seeking knights  were  the  progeni- 
tors of  one  of  the  most  retired  and  studious 
of  men,  the  world-renowned  scholiast,  St. 
Thomas  Aquinas.  The  chief  of  the  Dutch 
school  of  painters,  Rembrandt,  was  the  son 
of  a  very  commonplace  miller.  Salvator 


170  A  STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

Rosa's  father  was  a  mason.  Had  Albert 
Durer  followed  in  his  father' s  footsteps,  he 
would  have  been  a  silversmith  instead  of  a 
renowned  artist.  The  father  of  Benvenuto 
Cellini,  the  illustrious  Italian  artist,  was  a 
musician.  Diderot's  father  was  a  cutler.  A 
Lutheran  clergyman  gave  to  the  world  one 
of  its  cleverest  critics  and  dramatists — Less- 
ing.  Galen,  one  of  the  founders  of  the  sci- 
ence of  medicine,  had  an  architect  for  father, 
and  a  second  Xanthippe  for  mother.  The 
author  of  "A  Discourse  on  the  Music  of  the 
Ancients  and  Moderns,"  was  father  to  Gali- 
leo, the  foremost  scientist  and  astronomer  of 
his  age. 

One  of  the  broadest-minded  of  Italy's 
great  master-artists,  Giotto,  had  for  father 
one  of  the  narrowest-lived  of  men — a  simple 
herdsman.  A  mere  notary  was  the  father  of 
.the  most  nearly  universal  genius  the  world 
ever  beheld — Leonardo  Da  Vinci,  who  was 
civil  and  military  engineer,  inventor,  histo- 
rian, logician,  antiquary,  architect,  painter, 
sculptor,  musician,  scientist,  and  poet.  Scot- 
land's prince  of  poets,  Robert  Burns,  was 


IS   GENIUS   HEKEDITAEY?  171 

son  of  an  austere  Calvinist— a  gardener.  A 
wretched  flute-player  was  father  of  the  gifted 
Guido.  Another  eminent  Italian  artist, 
Zampieri,  was  son  of  a  shoemaker.  Rubens' 
father,  like  Durer's,  was  a  silversmith.  The 
father  of  England's  best-known  chemist, 
Faraday,  was  a  blacksmith.  From  an  igno- 
rant quarry-man  was  sprung  Canova,  the 
transmuter  of  marble  into  flesh  and  spirit. 
The  father  of  Rollin,  the  noted  historian, 
was  a  Parisian  cutler.  The  most  famous  of 
Italian  novelists,  Boccaccio,  was  the  son  of 
a  Florentine  tradesman,  and  was  himself  for 
a  time  a  merchant's  clerk.  The  father  of 
Southey,  and  also  that  of  Pope,  were  linen- 
drapers.  Oliver  Cromwell's  father  was  a 
malt-brewer.  The  father  of  Richard  Cobden, 
the  eminent  English  statesman  and  author, 
was  a  poor  farmer,  whose  son's  youthful 
employment  was  sheep-tending.  Benjamin 
Franklin's  father  was  a  tallow-chandler. 
Hiram  Powers'  father  was  a  Vermont 
farmer.  Cardinal  Wolsey's  father  was  a 
butcher.  The  father  of  Home  Tooke,  the 
English  lawyer,  wit,  and  priest,  was  a  dealer 


172  A   STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

in  poultry,  or,  as  the  witty  son  put  it  to  his 
aristocratic  associates  at  Eton,  "He  was  a 
Turkey  merchant."  The  renowned  German 
astronomer,  Kepler,  was  the  son  of  a  poor 
innkeeper.  Denmark's  famous  sculptor, 
Thorwaldsen,  was  the  son  of  a  common  fish- 
erman of  Iceland.  Richard  Wagner's  father 
was  a  police  court  Dogberry.  The  foregoing 
instances  would  seem  to  warrant  the  infer- 
ence that  just  as  the  diamond  is  supposed 
to  have  been  slowly  elaborated  from  car- 
bonaceous matter  furnished  by  some  dead 
animal  or  rotting  plant,  so  from  antecedents 
quite  as  unpromising  sprung  the  great  intel- 
lectual "Kohinoors"  or  "Regents"  of  the 
human  family. 

And  now,  in  order  to  complete  our  com- 
parison, and  make  as  fair  an  exhibit  as  pos- 
sible of  both  sides  of  the  question,  let  us 
next  note  certain  instances  in  which  the 
mental  bias  of  parent  and  offspring  appears 
to  have  been  identical. 

James  Watt's  early  love  for  tools  and  his 
mechanical  dexterity  may  very  readily  be 
traced  to  his  father,  who  was  a  carpenter  and 


IS  GENIUS   HEREDITARY  ?  173 

builder.  The  father  of  Palissy,  the  noted 
Huguenot  potter  and  naturalist,  was  a  tile- 
maker  and  worker  in  clay.  Edmund 
Burke' s  father  was  an  attorney  of  some 
prominence  in  Dublin.  Alexander's  father 
was  Philip,  king  of  Macedonia,  a  successful 
general  and  ruler,  and  the  originator  of  the 
famous  Macedonian  phalanx.  Both  the 
father  and  brother  of  Hannibal  were  noted 
generals.  Solon  was  descended  from  Co- 
drus.  The  father  of  Pericles,  Xanthippus, 
was  a  successful  Greek  general,  and  his 
mother  was  niece  of  Clisthenes,  an  Athenian 
statesman.  Charlemagne  was  grandson  of 
the  illustrious  Charles  Martel.  Not  only 
were  Bach' s  father  and  brothers  musicians, 
but  his  ancestors  for  generations  back  were 
of  the  same  turn  of  mind.  Mozart's  father 
was  a  professor  of  music.  Weber's  father 
was  a  man  of  musical  taste  and  of  some 
skill  in  the  same  direction.  No  little  part 
of  Mendelssohn's  peculiar  bent,  and  all 
the  merit  of  his  earlier  musical  training, 
must  be  accredited  to  his  highly  cultured 
mother.  Raphael's  father  was  a  painter  of 


174  A   STUDY    OF  GENIUS. 

considerable  reputation  in  his  day.  John 
Wesley's  ancestors  for  four  generations  back 
had  been  scholarly  churchmen.  Van  Dyck, 
the  master  of  portrait  painters,  was  particu- 
larly fortunate  in  his  parents,  his  father 
having  been  a  painter  on  glass  and  his 
mother  a  painter  of  landscapes,  from  whom, 
also,  he  received  his  earliest  art  instructions. 
The  father  of  Bichat,  the  skilled  anatomist 
and  physician,  was  himself  a  physician  of  no 
mean  repute.  Alfred  the  Great  was  grand- 
son of  the  great  Egbert.  Plato  declared 
himself  to  be  descended  in  direct  line  from 
the  gods.  A  pretty  shrewd  guess,  we  suspect. 
Certainly  there  is  no  "monkeying"  in  it! 
It  is  evident,  not  only  from  the  foregoing 
partial  lists,  but  it  would  also  be,  we  appre- 
hend, from  even  very  exhaustive  ones,  that 
the  instances  of  similar  mental  predilection 
upon  the  part  of  parents  and  their  offspring 
are  not  only  very  much  fewer  than  those  of 
an  opposite  sort,  but  that  they  are  also 
of  very  much  less  significance.  The  object  of 
citing  instances  of  the  latter  kind  is  to  show 
that  genius  is  transmitted  from  parent  to 


IS   GENIUS   HEREDITARY?  175 

offspring;  that  is,  is  hereditary.  But  is  this 
object  attained  by  instances,  however  numer- 
ous, which  simply  show  that  mediocrity  in 
a  certain  direction  in  the  parent  sometimes 
becomes  genius  in  the  same  direction  in  the 
child  ?  Not  at  all ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  in 
order  to  demonstrate  the  heredity  of  genius, 
it  must  be  shown  that  genius  in  the  parent 
begets  genius  in  the  child.  The  peculiar 
endowments  of  both  must  be,  not  only  simi- 
lar in  kind,  but  also  nearly,  if  not  quite, 
equal  in  degree,  and  that  degree  must 
amount  to  genius  in  both  cases  before  any 
transmission  of  genius  can  be  allowed  to 
have  taken  place. 

Doubtless  there  were  hundreds  of  musi- 
cians in  Austria  at  the  time  whose  talents 
were  equal,  if  not  superior,  to  those  of  Mo- 
zart's father,  and  doubtless,  also,  quite  a 
number  of  them  had  children  who  were 
musically  inclined  and  more  or  less  talented; 
but  out  of  the  whole  goodly  throng  there 
was  none  whom  the  world  cared  to  recognize 
as  a  genius.  Think  you  Raphael  was  the 
only  painter  of  his  day  who  was  descended 


176  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

from  an  artist  father?  Would  Alexander 
have  been  called  the  Great  had  his  military 
abilities  displayed  themselves  within  the 
same  narrow  lists  his  father's  did?  Where 
are  all  the  other  sons  of  reputable  attorneys 
at  law  who  started  in  life  with  Edmund 
Burke  ?  Very  many  boys  learn  their  father' s 
trade  of  carpenter,  but  how  few  utilize  it 
for  building  the  stately  and  imperishable 
renown  achieved  by  James  Watt's  work- 
manship ! 

Assuredly,  the  most  that  can  be  shown  in 
favor  of  the  physical  obligations  of  genius  is, 
that  in  some  instances,  and  these  a  striking- 
minority  of  the  whole  number,  it  derives 
simply  its  bent — its  initiative  impulse — from 
parental  predilections.  This  is  all;  and  in 
those  cases  wherein  the  child  develops  noth- 
ing beyond  what  it  could  fairly  be  said  to 
have  inherited  from  its  parents,  there  re- 
sults, of  course,  the  same  mediocre  or  sim- 
ply talented  person  its  parents  were — that  is 
no  genius  at  all.  But  just  at  that  point 
where  parental  endowments  leave  off  does 
genius  begin.  It  takes  the  forces  bequeathed 


IS   GENIUS   HEEEDITARY  ?  177 

it  by  ancestors,  and  by  new  adjustments  and 
combinations  of  these  converts  the  family 
clay  or  pewter  mug  into  a  goblet  fit  for  the 
lips  of  immortals.  Not  the  ability  to  paint, 
or  carve,  or  compose,  or  philosophize,  or  cal- 
culate, or  analyze,  or  combine,  constitutes 
genius;  but  rather  the  power  to  carry  on 
these  various  processes  after  a  peculiar  and 
extraordinary  fashion.  The  former  may  be 
inherited,  and  constitutes  talent;  the  latter 
must  be  generated  and  evolved  in  one's  own 
vital  laboratory,  and  is  genius. 

In  the  foregoing  inquiry  we  have  consid- 
ered in  how  far  great  men  have  derived  their 
genius  from  their  parents  or  less  near  an- 
cestors; let  us  now  regard  what  may  in  a 
sense  be  styled  the  reverse  relation — the 
transmission  by  geniuses  of  their  illustrious 
parts  to  their  offspring.  Who  are  the  ac- 
knowledged geniuses  who  have  also  had 
geniuses  for  children  ?  If  from  any  source, 
we  shall  most  likely  get  an  answer  to  our 
inquiry  from  the  same  painstaking  investi- 
gator we  have  before  had  recourse  to — Mr. 

Gfalton. 

12 


178  A   STUDY    OP   GENIUS. 

We  have  already  cited  the  best  instances 
he  adduces  of  two  nearly  equally  illustrious 
persons  in  the  same  family.  Let  us  again 
glance  at  such  of  them  as  stand  in  the  rela- 
tion of  father  and  son.  They  are  —  of 
judges:  Sir  Edward  Hyde  (Earl  Clarendon) 
and  his  son  Laurence  (Earl  of  Rochester). 
Of  statesmen:  George  Grenville,  Premier, 
and  his  son  Lord  William,  also  Premier;  Sir 
Robert  Peel  and  his  son  Rt.  Hon.  Sir  Rob- 
ert; William  Pitt  (Earl  of  Chatham)  and  his 
son  William;  Sir  Robert  Walpole  and  his 
sons  Sir  Edward  and  Horace;  William  Cecil 
(Lord  Burleigh)  and  his  son  Robert  (Earl  of 
Salisbury);  John  Adams  and  his  son  John 
Quincy.  Of  commanders:  Philip  II.  and 
his  son  Alexander  the  Great;  Hamilcar  and 
his  son  Hannibal;  William  the  Silent  and 
Maurice  of  Nassau;  the  two  Scipios;  Vespa- 
sian and  his  son  Titus;  Henri  Due  de  Bouil- 
lon and  his  son  Turenne.  Of  literary  men : 
Dr.  Thomas  Arnold  and  Matthew  Arnold; 
the  Scaligers.  Of  scientists:  Sir  William 
Herschel  and  his  son  Sir  John.  Of  musi- 
cians: J.  Ambrose  Bach  and  his  son  John 


IS  GENIUS  HEREDITARY?  170 

Sebastian;  Leopold  Mozart  and  his  son 
Wolfgang;  and  of  painters,  the  Teniers, 
father  and  son. 

Now,  in  this  meager  array  of  names, 
which,  nevertheless,  is  the  very  fullest  that 
Mr.  Galton's  quite  exhaustive  research  has 
been  able  to  furnish,  how  many  real  geniuses 
are  represented  ?  If  any  of  those  classed  as 
judges  and  statesmen  are  to  be  so  accredited 
— and  remember  that  Galton  himself  places 
such  men  in  a  rank  not  higher  than  third — 
that  distinction  belongs  to  William  Pitt,  the 
Earl  of  Chatham;  but  allowing  this  to  be  a 
correct  estimate,  it  can  not  be  maintained 
that  his  son  William  was  also  a  genius.  The 
only  geniuses  that  appear  in  the  list  of  com- 
manders are  Alexander  the  Great,  Hannibal, 
and  Turenne,  the  rest  being  simply  success- 
ful generals  of  a  much  lower  than  universal 
type.  But  none  of  these  illustrious  sons  of 
Mars  bequeathed  a  military  genius  to  the 
world.  We  do  not  allow  that  any  of  the 
literary  men  named  were  geniuses,  or  even 
tolerable  approximations.  If  either  of  the 
two  scientists  named  may  be  regarded  as  a 


180  A   STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

genius,  it  was  the  son  rather  than  the  father. 
Of  the  four  musicians  cited,  neither  the 
elder  Bach  nor  the  elder  Mozart  would  have 
ever  been  known  to  any  succeeding  genera- 
tion had  it  not  been  for  the  world-wide  em- 
blazonment of  the  family  names  wrought  by 
the  genius  of  the  sons.  Of  the  sole  illustra- 
tion borrowed  from  the  realm  of  art,  it  must 
be  confessed  that,  if  in  point  at  all,  it  is  rel- 
atively weak;  the  Teniers  belonging  to  the 
range,  rather  than  among  the  number  of  iso- 
lated and  commanding  peaks  of  artist  gen- 
iuses. And  so  we  think  we  may  challenge  the 
production  of  a  single  example  wherein  a 
really  great  genius  has  given  to  the  world  a 
son  or  daughter  possessed  of  an  equally 
eminent  endowment.  This  is  certainly  the 
case  so  far  as  relates  to  the  world's  univers- 
ally accepted  geniuses. 

Mr.  Hale,  writing  in  The  New  England 
Magazine,  concerning  visits  to  Emerson, 
says :  "I  remember  perfectly  how  delicately 
he  put  me  down  one  night  when  I  had  gone 
down  there,  with  Galton's  'Heredity'  in  my 
bag,  and  was  full  of  Galton's  admirable 


IS   GENIUS   HEREDITARY  ?  181 

stories  about  the  continuation  of  the  same 
line  of  life  and  thought  in  certain  families — 
the  stories  of  the  Pitts,  for  instance,  and, 
what  Galton  delights  in  most  of  all,  the 
story  of  our  house  of  Adams.  Once  and 
again  I  tried  to  bring  Mr.  Emerson  up  to 
take  some  interest  in  this,  but  he  would 
only  take  the  civil  interest  of  one  who  has  a 
persistent  and  fussy  guest  to  entertain.  But 
at  last  he  said :  '  No,  there  is  nothing  in  it. 
If  there  were,  we  should  have  Weimar  to-day 
full  of  Schillers,  and  Goethes,  and  Richters; 
and  we  should  have  had  Athens  in  the  time 
of  Paul  full  of  another  set  of  Socrates  and 
Plato  and  Pericles.  And  it  was  not  so.'  I 
have  taken  much  less  stock  in  heredity  since 
he  made  that  suggestion  about  Athens  and 
Weimar." 

Indeed,  a  little  study  of  this  matter  will 
show  that  men  of  genius  not  only  do  not 
propagate  others  of  their  like,  but,  in  very 
many  instances,  either  do  not  marry  at  all, 
or,  in  case  they  do,  have  but  few,  if  any, 
children.  That  wide-visioned  English  philos- 
opher of  three  -hundred  years  ago,  Francis 
12 


182  A    STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

Bacon,  affirmed:  "Surely,  a  man  shall  see 
the  noblest  works  and  formations  have  pro- 
ceeded from  childless  men."  And  again: 
' '  Certainly  the  best  works,  and  of  greatest 
merit  for  the  public,  have  proceeded  from 
the  unmarried  or  childless  men." 

A  similar  opinion  is  advanced  by  a  scien- 
tific writer  of  our  own  day — Charles  Morris, 
in  Popular  Science  Monthly  for  September, 
1884.  He  says:  "If  we  consider  special 
cases  of  noted  men,  the  great  generals  of  the 
world,  the  commanding  statesmen,  the  dis- 
tinguished scientists,  the  celebrated  authors 
—all,  in  fact,  who  have  become  distinguished 
for  superior  mental  ability — an  almost  uni- 
versal result  appears :  they  have  either  left 
no  descendants,  or  their  families  were  very 
small." 

With  a  view  to  testing  the  truth  of  the 
assertions  just  quoted,  we  have  carefully 
examined  a  recent  work  ("The  Hundred 
Greatest  Men,"  edited  by  Wallace  Wood, 
M.  D.),  containing  biographical  sketches  of 
a  hundred  and  nine  of  the  most  illustrious 
men  who  have  ever  flourished  in  the  several 


IS   GENIUS   HEREDITARY  ?  183 

domains  of  literature,  art,  religion,  philos- 
ophy, history,  science,  politics,  and  indus- 
try. We  find  the  following  among  the 
number  of  those  who  were  never  married: 
Leonardo  Da  Vinci,  Michael  Angelo,  Raphael, 
Handel,  Beethoven,  Moses,  St.  Paul,  Eras- 
mus, Bossuet,  Plato,  Newton,  Locke,  Kant, 
and  Voltaire,  not  to  name  certain  eminent 
ecclesiastics  whose  vocation  enjoined  celib- 
acy. A  little  more  than  half  of  the  remain- 
ing number  (forty-nine)  were  married  men, 
about  a  quarter  of  whom  were  childless,  and 
not  more  than  four  or  five  of  whom  had 
families  of  more  than  two  or  three  children. 
More  than  a  third  of  the  whole  number 
(thirty-eight)  were  left  in  doubt  as  to  marital 
relations,  nothing  whatever  being  reported 
concerning  marriage  or  the  birth  of  off- 
spring. 

Geniuses,  then,  as  regards  offspring,  are 
like  the  Webbe  Shebeyli  of  Eastern  Africa, 
a  deep  and  rapid  stream  that  flows  for  hun- 
dreds of  miles,  and  finally  loses  itself  in  a 
desert  of  sand;  or  they  may  be  compared  to 
neuter  insects,  who  are  quite  distinct  in  parts 


184  A   STUDY    OF  GENIUS. 

and  in  inclinations  from  either  parent,  and 
are  incapable  of  propagation. 

If  the  preoccupation  of  mind,  the  intense 
concentration  and  absorption  of  all  the  less 
sensuous  energies  of  one's  nature,  the  almost 
constant  devotion  to  some  special  end  of  in- 
tellectual endeavor  inseparable  from  the  life 
of  every  genius,  may  not  adequately  account 
for  his  comparative  indifference  toward 
marital  and  parental  relations,  then,  per- 
haps, we  may  find  a  more  satisfactory  an- 
swer in  the  declaration  of  modern  science, 
that  mental  exertion  actually  restricts  the 
reproductive  energy.  Each  individual,  it  is 
held,  possesses  a  certain  tolerably  definite 
measure  of  nervous  stimulus,  which,  it  is  the 
normal  law  of  one's  being,  shall  be  fairly 
apportioned  among  all  the  various  organs 
and  parts  of  the  human  system.  If,  there- 
fore, any  one  of  these  vital  centers  comes  to 
arrogate  to  itself  more  than  its  normal  share 
of  nervous  stimulus,  it  is  plain  that  one  or 
more  others  must  either  suspend  their  nat- 
ural functions  or  else  diminish  their  activity; 
and  this  is  just  what  happens  in  the  case  of 


IS   GENIUS   HEREDITARY?  185 

the  genius — lie  whose  imperial  brain  dom- 
inates and  tyrannizes  over  and  practically 
annihilates  one  or  more  of  the  more  purely 
material  and  animal  centers  of  his  mechan- 
ism; and  so  it  happens  that  the  genius  is 
married  to  his  particular,  his  dearly  be- 
loved ideal,  and  his  achievements  toward 
realizing  this  constitute  his  legitimate,  his 
tenderly  prized  children. 

Summing  up,  then,  the  various  aspects  of 
the  heredity  of  genius,  we  think  all  that  can 
be  reasonably  claimed  in  the  light  either  of 
history,  or  experience,  or  modern  scientific 
research,  is  that  intelligent  and  talented 
parents  are  almost  sure  to  have  offspring  of 
a  similar  mental  calibre,  and  that  parental 
biases  are  not  unfrequently  transmitted  to 
children.  But  that  unique,  that  command- 
ing power  called  genius  allows  of  neither 
antitype  nor  duplicate.  Though  the  phys- 
ical constituents  that  go  to  its  making  must- 
be  allowed  to  have  previously  inhered  in  the 
mental  constitutions  of  parents,  yet  the  out- 
come of  their  combination  is  totally  differ- 
ent, if  not  in  kind,  then  certainly  in  de- 


186  A   STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

gree,  from  the  elemental  units.  Genius, 
then,  like  the  air  we  breathe,  like  the 
water  we  drink,  like  the  light  that  vivi- 
fies us,  is  a  compound,  not  one  of  whose 
factors  discloses  the  slightest  hint  of  the 
glorious  product,  and  whose  laws  of  combi- 
nation and  evolution  baffle,  and,  we  believe, 
must  ever  baffle,  the  keenest  scientific  inspec- 
tion. Like  protoplasm,  though  it  may  be 
resolved  into  its  physical  elements,  no  hand 
has  yet  been  found  cunning  enough  to  devise 
the  formula  for  recombining  those  well- 
known  elements  into  the  mysterious  whole. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

GENIUS  AND  ITS   ENVIRONMENT. 

Varieties  of  Environment:  (a)  Home  and  School  Training; 
(b)  Geographical  Surroundings;  (c)  One's  Race;  (d)  The 
Age  in  which  One  Lives. — Influences  of  Early  Training: 
First,  Favorable  Influences;  Examples  of  tlie  Same.  Sec- 
ondly, Unfavorable  Influences;  Examples  of  Such. — Pre- 
ponderance vf  the  Latter. 

An  individual' s  environment  may  be  said 
to  consist  of  four  concentrics  :  First,  there 
is  that  which  immediately  and  most  inti- 
mately surrounds  him — the  influences  of 
home,  of  school,  and  of  early  training  gen- 
erally. Secondly,  we  may  name  the  influ- 
ences, both  physical  and  sesthetical,  of 
climate  and  topography ;  in  other  words, 
one's  geographical  environment.  Closely 
circumscribing  the  last  comes  the  third  ele- 
ment of  influence — namely,  race;  while  the 
fourth  and  last  may  be  defined  as  the  pecul- 
iar intellectual  atmosphere  —  including  the 
elements  of  moral,  social,  and  political  forces 
—in  which  one  lives. 

(187) 


188  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

That  each  of  these  elements  of  environ- 
ment must  prove  either  favorable  or  unfa- 
vorable for  the  development  of  one's  peculiar 
genius,  is  abundantly  witnessed  to  by  the 
experiences  of  the  world' s  greatest  men. 

Let  us  notice  some  of  these  attestations, 
and,  in  the  same  connection  also,  certain 
weighty  opinions  regarding  the  interdepend- 
ence that  subsists  between  genius  and  its 
environments. 

And  first  we  shall  consider  that  most  inti- 
mate species  of  environment — the  influences 
of  home,  of  school,  and  of  early  discipline. 
And  as  these  influences  must  operate  either 
for  or  against  the  natural  unfolding  of  the 
child's  peculiar  powers,  we  shall  begin  by 
citing  examples  of  geniuses  whose  early  sur- 
roundings were  propitious. 

Watt  had  around  him  continually  all 
the  tools  of  the  mechanic.  Palissy  was 
acquainted  with  the  materials  and  utensils 
of  the  potter  from  earliest  childhood.  Cice- 
ro's natural  tastes  were  both  gratified  and 
stimulated  by  the  rich  literary  viands  of  his 
scholarly  father's  house.  Law-books  were 


GENIUS   AND   ITS   ENVIRONMENT.        189 

Burke' s  playthings,  and  he  breathed  an 
atmosphere  of  jurisprudence  from  tenderest 
years.  The  spirits  of  Codrus  and  Solon,  as 
well  as  the  muses  of  poetry  and  painting, 
were  the  boy  Plato' s  intimates.  Noble  and 
cultured  were  the  members  of  Herodotus' 
boyhood's  home.  Alexander's  educators 
were  the  foremost  king  and  the  most  saga- 
cious philosopher  of  his  day.  Hannibal's 
nursery  was  the  battle-field.  The  forum  was 
Caesar's  school-room,  and  the  camp  his  play- 
ground. At  one  end  of  the  table  presided 
a  Greek  general,  and  at  the  other  the  daugh- 
ter of  an  Athenian  statesman,  between  whom 
the  boy  Pericles  sat,  imbibing  teachings 
from  both.  Musical  instruments  were  more 
familiar  to  Bach  and  to  Mozart  than  marbles 
or  tops,  and  these  youths  could  hardly  have 
been  more  completely  surrounded  and  im- 
mersed in  music  than  they  were,  had  their 
cradles  been  the  inside  of  a  bass-viol  or  an 
organ-pipe. 

Leonardo  Da  Vinci  was  descended  from  a 
noble  family,  lived  in  a  home  of  refinement, 
and  was  schooled  in  his  favorite  studies  by  a 


190  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

noted  painter  and  sculptor.  Raphael's  first 
teacher  in  painting  was  his  father,  himself  a 
very  respectable  artist.  Bossuet  belonged  to 
an  honorable  family,  and  was  carefully  dis- 
ciplined in  the  direction  of  his  natural 
tastes.  John  Wesley  was  as  completely 
under  clerical  influences  when  at  home  as 
when  at  Oxford;  for  his  family  for  several 
centuries  prior  to  his  birth  had  largely  con- 
sisted of  scholarly  ecclesiastics.  Van  Dyck's 
father  was  a  painter  on  glass,  and  his  mother 
a  landscape  artist;  and  besides  these,  he  was 
also  instructed  by  the  great  Rubens.  Phid- 
ias is  said  to  have  been  taught  in  his  favor- 
ite art  by  the  best  masters  of  his  day. 
Aristotle  was  thoroughly  indoctrinated  at 
Athens  in  all  the  wisdom  of  the  Socratic  and 
Platonic  schools  of  philosophy.  Lavoisier, 
the  founder  of  modern  chemistry,  was  of 
wealthy  parents,  who,  in  educating  their  son, 
wisely  favored  and  fostered  his  natural  bent 
toward  the  sciences.  The  father  of  Albert 
Diirer  was  a  silversmith,  and  was  desirous 
that  his  son  should  embrace  the  same  art; 
but  perceiving  the  lad  to  be  naturally  in- 


GENIUS   AND   ITS   ENVIRONMENT.        191 

clined  toward  drawing,  he  very  sensibly 
placed  him  under  congenial  guidance. 

Though  the  foregoing  catalogue  of  gen- 
iuses, the  surroundings  of  whose  earlier  years 
were  helpful  toward  their  natural  unfolding, 
might  be  considerably  increased,  yet  must  it 
ever  continue  strikingly  smaller  than  the 
number  of  those  who,  like  the  Mexican  cent- 
ury-plant, have  sprung  up  and  flourished 
under  apparently  the  most  inhospitable  sur- 
roundings. 

Carlyle,  in  his  splendid  essay  on  Burns, 
queries:  "Is  not  every  genius  an  impossi- 
bility till  he  appear  ?  .  .  .  Let  but  the 
true  poet  be  given  us,  place  him  where  and 
how  you  will,  and  true  poetry  will  not  be 
wanting." 

The  eminent  French  critic,  M.  H.  A.  Taine, 
remarks:  "Of  Shakespeare  all  came  from 
within — I  mean  from  his  soul  and  his  gen- 
ius; external  circumstances  contributed  but 
slightly  to  his  development.  .  .  .  His 
genius  is  pure  imagination." 

Let  us  now  cite  some  of  those  geniuses 
who,  like  ivy-berries,  would  seem  to  have 


192  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

required  the  most  rigorous  climates  to  ripen 
them;  or,  like  electricity,  revealed  their 
presence  and  potency  only  under  pressure 
or  friction;  or,  again,  were  like  the  grape- 
vine, which,  from  a  soil  too  sterile  to  support 
even  weeds,  extracts  the  choicest  of  wines. 

Just  as  the  coral  requires  for  its  life  and 
growth  exposure  to  the  open  sea  and  the 
constant  beating  of  the  surf,  so  certain 
human  natures  would  seem  to  demand  the 
friction  of  adverse  circumstances  to  develop 
their  characteristic  points  of  greatness. 

Franklin's  father  was  a  candle  and  soap 
maker — a  business  not  especially  adapted, 
one  would  think,  for  the  molding  of  a 
philosopher.  Stephenson's  father  was  an 
ignorant  collier,  and  George  began  life  as  a 
cow-boy.  He  was  past  seventeen  years  of  age 
before  he  learned  his  letters.  The  inventor 
of  the  art  of  printing  was  descended  from 
a  noble  family,  who  practically  disinherited 
him  for  his  "vulgar"  proclivity  toward 
mechanical  pursuits.  The  boyhood  home  of 
England's  supreme  naval  commander  was 
the  peaceful  village  parsonage.  A  French 


GENIUS   AND    ITS   ENVIRONMENTS.       193 

peasant's  hut  gave  birth  to  one  of  the  fore- 
most mathematicians  and  astronomers  of  the 
world — Laplace.  The  only  milky- way  known 
to  the  boy  Isaac  Newton  was  to  be  found  in 
the  cow-pasture  of  his  parents'  farm. 

Had  Demosthenes  harmonized  with  his 
home  surroundings  and  drawn  his  inspira- 
tion thence,  he  might  have  made  acceptable 
armor  and  furniture  for  Philip  of  Macedon, 
instead  of  very  unacceptable  orations  against 
him.  Handel's  father,  himself  a  surgeon, 
designed  George  Friedrich  for  the  law,  and 
in  order  to  subjugate  the  boy's  unaccount- 
able and  detestable  bias  for  music,  forbade 
him  going  where  music  could  be  heard,  and 
banished  all  musical  instruments  from  the 
house.  Gluck's  parents  were  too  poor  to 
gratify  their  son's  natural  yearning  for 
musical  instruction,  and  difficulties  opposed 
him  at  every  step  of  his  career,  which  noth- 
ing but  his  own  extraordinary  combative- 
ness  and  singleness  of  purpose  could  have 
surmounted.  Had  the  chief  of  song- writers, 
Schubert,  imbibed  the  influence  of  his  home, 
and  yielded  to  the  tyranny  of  antecedents 

13 


194  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

for  several  generations,  he  would  simply 
have  added  one  more  to  the  innumerable  and 
indistinguishable  company  of  Germany's 
school-masters.  Schumann's  environments 
were  books,  and  an  ardent  intention  on 
the  part  of  both  parents  that  he  should  be- 
come a  lawyer.  But  not  even  the  laws  of 
music,  as  then  recognized,  could  inspire  re- 
spect in  the  mind  of  this  pioneer  futurist. 

What  congeniality  may  we  imagine  there 
could  have  been  between  the  pious,  ascetic 
practices  of  a  monastic  school  and  the  un- 
bridled spirit  of  the  great  satirist  of  the 
Renaissance — Rabelais?  Precisely  the  re- 
verse of  the  last  was  the  case  of  the  dis- 
tinguished scholiast,  St.  Thomas  Aquinas. 
He  was  descended  from  a  great  feudal  family, 
whose  every  male  member  had  led  the  stir- 
ring, adventurous  life  of  a  knight,  and  who, 
therefore,  regarded  with  no  slight  disgust, 
and  opposed  with  no  little  obstinacy,  his 
natural  bent  and  determination  to  enter 
upon  the  studious,  devotional  life  of  the 
cloister. 

The  chief  ornament  of  the  Dutch  school 


GENIUS   AND   ITS   ENVIRONMENT.         195 

of  painters,  Rembrandt,  had  to  rid  his 
young  neck  of  two  millstones  —  one  his 
father's  grain-grinding  establishment,  and 
the  other  the  University  of  Leyden,  whither 
he  was  sent  to  be  fitted  for  some  learned 
profession — before  he  could,  salmon-like, 
make  headway  in  the  element  that  nature 
assigned  him.  Between  his  father's  purpose 
to  make  a  warrior  of  him,  and  his  mother's 
antipodal  design  to  fit  him  for  holy  orders, 
Nicolas  Poussin  came  very  nearly  being  torn 
in  two,  and  France  narrowly  escaped  los- 
ing one  of  her  noblest  and  most  versatile 
masters  of  art.  The  happenings  of  the  earlier 
years  of  Claude  Lorraine's  life  were  singu- 
larly at  variance  with  his  latent  genius.  His 
parents  could  afford  him  only  the  scantiest 
schooling  —  and  even  this  went  against  his 
mental  grain.  Out  of  school,  he  was  ap- 
prenticed to  a  pastry-cook,  but  he  spoilt 
every  pie  he  got  his  fingers  into.  He  next 
took  service  as  a  domestic,  but  soon  lost  his 
place  through  natural  awkwardness  and  ab- 
sent-mindedness. Finally,  adopting  the  un- 
conventional life  of  a  tramp,  he  strolled 


196  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

into  Italy,  and  there,  hiring  himself  to  a 
painter,  experienced  his  real  birth — his  ad- 
vent into  the  life  of  art,  wherein  in  due  time 
he  achieved  the  distinction  of  one  of  the 
greatest  of  landscape  painters,  and  one  of 
the  most  lovable  of  men. 

Salvator  Rosa  was  sent  to  school  to  qualify 
for  a  learned  profession,  and  his  teacher  was 
enjoined  to  punish  him  whenever  he  caught 
him  drawing.  The  father  of  Benvenuto 
Cellini  tried  his  utmost  to  educate  his  son 
for  his  own  profession,  that  of  a  musician, 
but  the  boy,  having  neither  talent  nor  taste 
in  that  direction,  finally  ran  away  from  home 
to  escape  parental  coercion,  and  to  give  his 
genius  its  necessary  freedom.  So  also  were 
Guido1  s  early  days  actually  wasted  in  prac- 
tice on  the  flute  to  gratif y  his  father' s  desire 
to  make  a  musician  of  him.  Zampieri's 
shoe-making  father  thought  his  son  best 
fitted  for  the  ecclesiastical  state;  but  the  son 
fulfilled  only  so  much  of  the  original  inten- 
tion as  involved  the  portraiture  of  the  merely 
sensuous  and  external  characteristics  of  the 
saints  and  holy  ones  of  the  church. 


GENIUS   AND   ITS   ENVIRONMENT.        197 

Faraday  spent  his  youth  in  his  father's 
blacksmith-shop,  and  his  early  manhood  in 
a  book-bindery.  After  what  formulary  shall 
we  mix  these  two  factors  to  make  of  them  an 
eminent  chemist  ?  A  certain  burden-bearing 
young  porter  of  Athens  afterward  became 
famous  as  Protagoras,  sophist  and  orator, 
whose  back — nay,  whose  very  neck — eventu- 
ally proved  too  stiff  to  bend  in  reverence 
even  to  the  gods  of  the  Parthenon.  D' Alem- 
bert,  the  French  mathematician  and  author, 
was  a  foundling  of  Paris,  and  was  reared 
by  a  poor  woman  who  picked  him  up  on 
the  street.  Another  barefooted  gamin,  an 
orphan,  became  Beranger,  a  lyric  critic  of 
France,  whose  stirring  and  pointed  verses  did 
more  than  many  political  harangues  to  bring 
about  the  revolution  of  1830.  Cervantes 
was  a  Spanish  soldier.  The  most  ethereal 
and  delicate  of  English  poets,  Keats,  first 
saw  the  light  of  day  in  a  stable.  The  king 
of  violinists,  Paganini,  was  of  illegiti- 
mate birth,  and  very  poor.  The  Dutch 
national  poet,  Joost  van  den  Vondel,  served 
as  apprentice  to  a  stocking-weaver.  The 

13 


198  A  STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

most  magnetic  of  English  revivalists,  White- 
field,  arose  from  the  condition  of  a  stable- 
boy.  Sir  Richard  Arkwright,  the  inventor 
of  the  spinning-jenny,  was  in  youth  a  bar- 
ber's assistant,  and  had  no  schooling  until 
past  twenty  years  of  age.  In  the  same  trade 
also  were  reared  Turner  and  Tenterden,  the 
foremost  of  English  landscape  painters. 
Benjamin  West  was  a  Pennsylvania  farm- 
er's boy.  The  trade  of  watch-maker  was 
that  of  Beaumarchais,  the  French  dramatist. 
Hans  Christian  Andersen,  the  charming 
story-teller,  was  once  a  cobbler.  A  kitchen- 
boy  developed  into  Dr.  Prideaux,  Bishop  of 
Worcester. 

Moliere,  the  head  of  the  comic  dramatists 
of  France,  was  the  son  of  an  upholsterer. 
Though  well-educated,  he  followed  his 
father's  business  for  several  years;  then 
.studied  in  turn  both  law  and  theology, 
when,  under  the  stress  of  some  apparently 
perverse,  if  not  devilish  impulse,  he  joined 
a  band  of  strolling  players,  and  thereby 
came  into  possession  of  his  rightful  role 
upon  the  stage  of  life.  Correggio  was  born 


GENIUS   AND   ITS   ENVIRONMENT.        199 

of  very  poor  and  humble  parents;  had  no 
teacher,  and  never  studied  the  works  of  any 
artist;  and  yet,  guided  by  an  innate  love  for 
art  and  indefatigable  devotion  to  it,  he  is 
claimed  to  have  surpassed  even  Raphael  in 
exquisite  grace  of  delineation.  Dickens' 
education  was  of  the  meagerest  sort,  and 
his  early  employments  were  of  the  most  hu- 
miliating character.  Sir  David  Brewster's 
father,  who  was  rector  of  a  grammar  school, 
educated  his  son  for  the  ministry,  although 
his  predilections  even  from  boyhood  favored 
scientific  studies.  Cardinal  Richelieu  was 
for  a  time  disciplined  for  the  army.  The 
father  of  Linnaeus,  himself  a  Lutheran 
pastor,  originally  designed  his  nature-seek- 
ing son  for  the  church,  and  later  apprenticed 
him  to  a  shoe-maker.  Euripides,  one  of  the 
three  great  tragic  poets  of  Greece,  tested  his 
abilities  as  an  athlete,  then  as  a  painter,  then 
as  a  student  of  rhetoric  and  philosophy,  be- 
fore he  became  aware  of  his  real  fitness. 
Calvin  was  educated  for  the  law,  but,  un- 
fortunately for  Draco,  he  subsequently  em- 
braced theology.  Lessing,  the  eminent  critic 


200  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

and    dramatist,    was  designed  for  priestly 
orders.      Galileo  was  schooled  at  first  for 
monastic  orders,  and  afterward  for  the  med- 
ical profession.     Michael  Angelo's  father  in- 
tended him  for  one  of  the  learned  profes- 
sions, and  strove  by  threats  and  even  blows 
to  deter  the  boy  from  following  his  natural 
inclinations.   Tycho  Brahe,  the  distinguished 
astronomer,  was  put  to  reading  law  at  six- 
teen, but  passed  whole  nights  in  pursuit  of 
his  favorite  study.     Audubon's   father    in- 
tended his  son  for  the  navy  or  engineering, 
and  sent  him  to  France  to  be  taught  mathe- 
matics,  drawing,  geography,    fencing,    and 
music.     But  even  in  drawing,  the  most  con- 
genial of  them,  the  boy's  natural  taste  re- 
vealed itself  in  his  fondness  for  represent- 
ing birds.    Meissonier,  the  greatest,  perhaps, 
of  living  painters,  never  knew  the  date  of 
his  birth,  or  who  either  of  his  parents  was. 
His  whole  youth  was  passed  in  poverty  and 
neglect,  one   scanty  meal  a  day  being  his 
usual  allowance.      He  never  knew  how  he 
learned  to  paint,  and  was  himself  a  master 
when,    out  of   deference  to  general    usage 


GENIUS   AND   ITS   ENVIRONMENT.        201 

merely,  he  consented  to  study  under  a  well- 
known  artist  of  his  day. 

From  the  foregoing  instances  —  and  any 
multiplication  of  them  would  not  apprecia- 
bly affect  the  result  —  it  would  appear  that 
genius,  in  making  its  advent  into  the  world, 
is  no  respecter  of  either  the  abode  or  the 
household.  The  mansion  or  the  hut,  the 
city  or  the  ranch,  the  philosopher  or  the 
ignoramus,  are  alike  privileged  to  grace  its 
birth-hour.  If  there  be  any  real  preference 
in  the  matter,  it  would  seem  to  lie  where 
Shakespeare  has  located  Sleep's  chosen  cra- 
dle, in  the  lines : 

"  Why  rather,  Sleep,  liest  thou  in  smoky  cribs, 
Upon  uneasy  pallets  stretching  thee, 
And  hushed  with  buzzing  night-flies  to  thy  slumbers, 
Than  in  the  perfumed  chambers  of  the  great, 
Under  the  canopies  of  costly  state, 
And  lulled  with  sounds  of  sweetest  melody  ?  " 

Just  as  the  choicest  of  essences  and  the 
most  delicate  of  perfumes  are  extracted  from 
such  coarse  and  malodorous  substances  as 
benzine,  coal-tar,  and  stable-offal,  so  genius 
would  oftenest  seem  to  be  sublimated  from 
the  commonest  and  lowliest  of  social  constit- 
uents. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

GEOGRAPHICAL   ENVIRONMENT. 

Effects  upon  Man  and  His  Habitat  of  the  Extremes  of  Tem- 
perature and  of  Configuration. — A  Mean  between  these 
Extremes  Necessary  for  the  Best  Products  either  of  the 
Soil  or  the  Intellect. — Potency  of  Physical  Environment 
as  seen  in  the  Symbolism  of  the  Earlier  Religious  (Con- 
ceptions of  Mankind. — All  Remarkable  Peoples,  and 
tlierefore  all  Remarkable  Individuals,  have  Flourished 
icithin  Hospitable  Physical  Bounds. — The  Geographical 
Lines  of  such  Region. 

We  now  come  to  consider  those  less  in- 
timate and  not  so  obvious  elements  of  life's 
make-up — the  influences  of  surrounding  geo- 
graphical factors. 

There  can  no  longer  be  any  doubt,  if  there 
ever  was,  that  the  physical  conditions  under 
which  a  people  live  have  a  great  deal  to  do 
with  the  constitutional  outcome  of  that 
people;  and,  of  course,  if  this  be  true  of  a 
whole  community,  or  nation,  or  race,  it  is 
equally  true  of  every  individual  of  those 
aggregates,  and  therefore  of  the  geniuses 
comprehended  therein. 

In  the  first  place,  it  must  be  conceded  by 

(303) 


204  A    STUDY    OF  GENIUS. 

all  that  any  extreme  of  temperature,  whether 
frigid  or  torrid — when  the  permanent  and 
normal  status  of  a  region — is  wholly  prevent- 
ive of  any  but  the  lowest  types  of  human 
development,  be  it  physical,  or  intellectual, 
or  sesthetical,  or  moral,  or  industrial,  or 
governmental.  Tropical,  and  particularly 
equatorial,  heat  completely  dries  up  the 
mounting  sap  of  human  energy;  while  the 
intense  cold  of  polar  latitudes  stagnates  and 
solidifies  the  natural  currents  of  human  en- 
deavor. It  is  therefore  to  countries  whose 
climates  mainly  lie  somewhere  between  these 
extreme  temperatures,  and  where  intensity  of 
heat  and  cold  is  the  rare  exception  rather 
than  the  rule,  that  we  must  look  for  the 
peoples  and  the  individuals  who  have  made 
their  presence  among  mankind  effective — 
historical. 

The  same,  or  very  nearly  the  same,  asser- 
tion may  be  made  concerning  the  remaining 
physical  constituents  of  a  country.  Ex- 
tremes in  configuration — whether  it  be  -the 
monotony  of  a  prairie  or  desert,  or  the  op- 
pressiveness of  surrounding  mountains — are 


GEOGRAPHICAL   ENVIRONMENT.          205 

alike  productive  of  natural  sterility,  and 
sterility  is  almost  invariably  accompanied 
by  poverty  in  the  stock  of  the  inhabitants. 
A  mean  between  these  extremes — the  variety 
which  comes  from  a  certain  happy  blending 
of  the  two — is  the  indispensable  condition  of 
fertility  in  the  soil;  and  where  the  latter 
prevails,  there  is  certain  to  be  found  the 
presence  of  a  prosperous  and  progressive 
people.  Furthermore,  where  the  physical 
conditions  are  such  as  to  bring  about  a 
prodigality  of  natural  supply,  this  extreme 
is  quite  as  preventive  of  the  best  results  of 
human  growth  as  the  opposite  one  of  steril- 
ity; for  both  alike  militate  against  that 
healthful  putting  forth  of  human  energy 
without  which  mankind  must  lapse  into 
stolidity  on  the  one  hand  or  sensuality  on 
the  other. 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  exhibition  of 
the  modifying  effects  of  physical  surround- 
ings upon  mankind  is  to  be  met  with  in  the 
history  of  the  various  religious  beliefs  that 
have  prevailed.  And  in  this  connection  it 
should  be  remembered  that  until  recent 


206  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

times  a  people's  religious  creed  compre- 
hended its  whole  intellectual  as  well  as  its 
emotional  experiences.  Though,  doubtless, 
not  unfamiliar,  a  few  illustrations  of  the 
above  statement  may  not  be  out  of  place 
here. 

In  such  countries  as  Egypt,  Babylonia, 
and  Arabia,  whose  surfaces  are  monoto- 
nously level  and  quite  destitute  of  physical 
diversity,  but  whose  cloudless  skies  and 
vaporless  atmospheres  display  the  heavenly 
bodies  in  uncomparable  multitude  and  brill- 
iancy, it  was  these  resplendent  celestial 
luminaries  that  attracted  the  eyes,  and 
through  these  dominated  the  entire  mental 
and  spiritual  activities  of  the  people.  In 
Africa  and  South  America,  where  profuse 
and  colossal  forms  of  animal  and  plant  con- 
stitute the  most  familiar  features  of  man's 
physical  surrounding,  the  native  mind  in- 
carnates its  deities  and  religious  ideas  in 
trees  or  beasts  of  particularly  impressive 
types.  In  northern  lands,  where  lofty  and 
rugged  mountains,  rain,  hail,  snow,  and 
boisterous  and  icy  winds  make  up  the  normal 


GEOGRAPHICAL   ENVIRONMENT.          207 

expression  of  his  physical  abode,  there  we 
find  man  cherishing  snch  religious  concep- 
tions as  Thor  the  thunderer,  Woden  the 
stormful,  and  Loki  the  vengeful. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  a  locality  like 
Greece,  where  land  and  water,  heat  and 
cold,  cloud  and  sunshine,  fertility  and  steril- 
ity, grandeur  and  beauty  of  landscape 
conspired  for  the  production  of  a  most 
delightfully  varied  physical  panorama,  there 
we  find  the  human  mind  symbolizing  in  each 
of  these  numberless  natural  appearances 
some  conception  pertaining  to  the  supernat- 
ural. Snow-capped  and  cloud-gated  Olym- 
pus suggested  the  inaccessible  abode  of  the 
gods,  while  any  one  of  the  many  and  lovely 
valleys  might  serve  as  a  type  of  Elysium, 
the  garden  abode  of  the  departed  good. 
Thunder  and  lightning  were  lodged  in  om- 
nipotent Zeus;  roseate  morning  was  known 
as  blushing  Aurora;  the  all-conquering  light 
and  heat  of  the  sun  betokened  chariot-driv- 
ing Phoebus  Apollo;  the  quaking,  noise,  and 
eruptive  destruction  of  the  volcano  were  in- 
dicative of  the  smithy  occupations  of  brawny 


208  A  STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

Vulcan;  the  delights  of  the  chase  were  dedi- 
cated to  virtuous  Diana;  conviviality,  in- 
spired by  wine,  claimed  voluptuous  Bacchus 
for  its  patron;  while  each  water-course  was 
haunted  by  its  nymph,  and  each  wood  by 
its  dryad,  with  character  expressive  of  their 
material  peculiarities. 

But  illustrations  like  the  foregoing  might 
be  adduced  almost  without  limit  to  show 
how  that,  without  exception,  all  the  relig- 
ious conceptions — which  is  tantamount  to 
saying  all  the  intellectual  conceptions — of 
the  primary  branches  of  the  human  family 
have  been  signally  and  quite  permanently 
influenced  by  the  physical  environment  of 
the  peoples  cherishing  them.  The  applica- 
tion we  would  make  of  this  clearly  admis- 
sible fact  is  that  physical  environment,  so 
potent  in  its  modifying  effects  upon  the 
mental  life  of  the  past,  is  still,  and  always 
must  be,  a  great  leavener  of  human  concep- 
tions, a  dynamic  force  in  the  life  of  every 
man,  and  particularly  in  that  of  the  genius; 
for  the  latter  must  be  allowed  to  be  as  pre- 
ternaturally  sensitive  to  the  touches  of 


GEOGRAPHICAL   ENVIRONMENT.          209 

nature  around  him  as  he  is  extraordinarily 
endowed  in  other  respects. 

In  harmony  with  the  foregoing  observa- 
tions, and  as  a  logical  induction  from  them, 
it  may  be  added  that  just  as  no  people  of 
more  than  ordinary  intelligence  has  ever 
flourished  within  inhospitable  physical 
bounds,  so  no  genius  has  ever  been  known 
to  have  sprung  up  in  a  country  of  pro- 
nouncedly unfavorable  physical  conditions. 
It  is  not  the  poles,  with  their  ice-locked  and 
desolate  solitudes,  nor  the  equator,  with  its 
exuberance  of  fauna  and  flora;  it  is  not  the 
snow-wrapped  mountain  height,  nor  the  low- 
lying  desert,  none  of  these,  that  has  chanced 
to  be  the  cradle  of  extraordinary  men. 
Rather  do  we  find  them  only  within  climates 
and  localities  which  are  the  means  of  these 
extremes,  and  where  a  certain  variety  of 
natural  phenomena  prevails. 

The  extreme  geographical  limits,  then,  of 
the  possible  habitat  of  geniuses  may  be  de- 
fined as  the  Arctic  Circle  and  the  Tropic  of 
Cancer,  about  midway  between  which  lies  its 
most  favorable  region. 

14 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

ENVIRONMENT. — INFLUENCE    OF   EACE. 

All  Great  Achievements  have  Proceeded  from  either  the  Cau- 
casian  or  the  Mongolian  Race;  ergo,  all  Geniuses  have 
Emerged  from  One  or  the  Other  of  these  Races. — Con- 
firmatory Opinionx  of  Grant  Allen  and  John  BurrougJis. 

A  third  element  of  environment  is  race; 
by  which  we  would  designate  all  those  phys- 
ical and  mental  peculiarities  inhering  in  the 
distinctive  character  and  constitution  of  the 
people  among  whom  one's  life  is  cast. 

If  we  catechise  human  history  we  shall 
find  that  all  the  great  achievements  of  the 
past,  whether  material  or  intellectual,  social 
or  political,  have  proceeded  from  but  two  of 
the  five  generally  recognized  races — the  Cau- 
casian and  the  Mongolian. 

The  but  little  understood  and  yet  splendid 
civilizations  of  the  Orient — those  of  China, 
Northern  India,  Mesopotamia,  Syria,  Egypt, 
and  Carthage;  the  more  recent,  and  in  many 
points  superior,  enlightenment  of  the  classic 
epoch;  also  the  latest,  the  present,  whose 

(211) 


212  A   STUDY   OP"   GENIUS. 

theaters  of  display  are  Europe  and  North 
America — these  all  had  their  beginning  and 
development  among  one  or  other  of  the  vari- 
ous branches  or  families  constituting  the 
two  races  above  named.  This  fact,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  comprehends  the  minor  one 
— but  that  in  which  we  are  especially  inter- 
ested— namely :  that  all  of  the  extraordinary 
individuals — the  geniuses  known  to  us— 
have  emerged  from  one  or  other  of  the 
branches  of  these  same  most  influential 
races. 

The  reason  for  this  is  so  obvious  that  we 
need  hardly  pause  to  indicate  it.  The  gen- 
ius confessedly  must  be  made  up  of  not 
only  such  human  stuff  as  is  found  alone  in  a 
superior  race,  but  also  only  of  the  best  of 
such  stuff;  for  he  must  be  a  superior  among 
superiors — the  consummate  flower,  the  sur- 
passing fruit  of  his  people — else  is  he  no 
genius  at  all,  but  one  at  best  only  a  little 
above  the  undistinguished  average. 

Race,  then,  we  must  admit  to  be  an  indis- 
pensable factor — indeed,  the  most  funda- 
mental physical  condition  of  genius.  But 


INFLUENCE  OF   RACE.  213 

race  itself,  as  we  have  already  tried  to  show, 
is  in  great  part  the  natural  outcome  of  geo- 
graphical environment;  and  so  the  influence 
of  race  upon  genius  resolves  itself  ultimately 
into  the  prior  consideration  of  the  influence 
of  geographical  condition  upon  genius. 

Grant  Allen,  in  a  recent  essay,  also  indi- 
cates the  power  of  race  and  national  char- 
acteristics upon  individual  development. 
He  says:  "Except  in  a  generally  mechan- 
ical race,  you  will  not  find  a  Watt  or  an 
Edison;  except  in  a  generally  literary  race, 
you  will  not  find  a  Shakespeare  or  a  Goethe; 
except  in  a  generally  aesthetic  race,  you  will 
not  find  a  Leonardo  or  a  Beethoven. 

"Every  race  possesses  a  certain  mean  of 
character  —  intellectual,  emotional,  moral, 
and  aesthetic.  From  this  mean  variations 
arise  in  every  particular  on  either  side,  and 
the  variations  always  bear  a  certain  general 
proportion  to  the  mean;  they  seldom  very 
largely  deflect  from  it  in  either  direction, 
and  never  very  largely  in  the  direction  of 
higher  or  increased  powers.  If  fortuitous 
geniuses  were  to  spring  up  independent  of 

14 


214  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

function,  we  might  find  an  occasional  philos- 
opher among  the  naked  Australians,  or  a 
stray  Cimabue  among  the  half -human  Ved- 
dahs.  If  you  can  account  for  the  average, 
you  have  accounted  for  the  exceptions, 
which  must,  as  a  mathematical  necessity, 
arise  from  the  constant  blending  of  vari- 
ously constituted  stocks.  And  when  we  ask, 
What  accounts  for  the  average  ?  there  is 
only  one  answer  possible — the  geographical 
environment. 

"There  could  have  been  no  Shakespeare 
if  the  Elizabethan  audiences  of  the  globe 
had  not  been  prepared  to  appreciate  the  del- 
icate fancy  of  '  Midsummer  Night's  Dream' 
and  the  vulgar  badinage  of  the  'Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor.'  Athens  had  a  Par- 
thenon, not  because  there  was  a  Phidias 
there  ready  to  build  one,  but  because  there 
was  a  large  body  of  citizens  who  wanted  a 
Parthenon  built.  The  geographical  condi- 
tions had  set  most  Athenians  on  the  artistic 
groove,  and  thus  many  of  them  took  to  art 
as  their  most  natural  career." 

Following  in  the  same  train  of    thought 


INFLUENCE  OF   RACE.  215 

come  the  opinions  of  John  Burroughs  upon 
the  subject.  He  writes:  "Does  anyone 
doubt  that  the  great  poets  and  artists  are 
made  up  mainly  of  the  most  common  uni- 
versal human  characteristics  ?  that  in  them, 
though  working  to  other  ends,  is  all  that 
makes  the  soldier,  the  sailor,  the  farmer,  the 
discoverer,  the  bringer-to-pass  in  any  field, 
and  that  their  work  is  good  and  enduring  in 
proportion  as  it  is  saturated  and  fertilized 
by  the  qualities  of  these?  Good  human 
stock  is  the  main  dependence.  No  great 
poet  ever  appeared  except  from  a  race  of 
good  fighters,  good  eaters,  good  sleepers, 
good  breeders.  Literature  dies  with  the  de- 
cay of  the  unliterary  element.  It  is  not  in 
the  spirit  of  something  far  away  in  the 
clouds,  or  under  the  moon — something  ethe- 
real, visionary,  and  anti-mundane — that  An- 
gelo,  Dante,  and  Shakespeare  work,  but  in 
the  spirit  of  the  common  nature  and  the 
homeliest  of  facts ;  through  these,  and  not 
away  from  them,  the  path  of  the  creator 
lies." 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

ENVIRONMENT. — INFLUENCE   OF  THE   AGE. 

TJutt  the  Age  forms  the  Man  is  affirmed  by  Macaulay,  Alison, 
Mattliew  Arnold,  and  Emerson. — Influence  of  Enlighten- 
ment.— Opinion  of  Addison. — Macaulay  regards  tJie  Cre- 
ative and  tlie  Critical  Faculties  as  opposed  to  each  oilier. — 
Reasons  of  Alison  for  believing  Civilization  an  impediment 
to  the  rise  of  Oeniuses. — An  Enlightened  Age  unfavor- 
able to  tlie  riac  of  only  one  sort  of  Genius — the  one  w/iose 
creations  involve  chiefly  tlie  free  exercise  of  tlie  imagina- 
tion and  tlie  emotions — all  others  being  favored  by  increase 
of  knowledge. 

Let  us  now  consider  the  fourth  and  last- 
named  factor  of  human  environment — the 
influence  upon  him  of  the  peculiar  civiliza- 
tion of  the  age  in  which  the  genius  lives. 

Macaulay,  in  his  essay  on  Dryden,  de- 
clares:  "In  fact,  it  is  the  age  that  forms 
the  man,  not  the  man  that  forms  the  age. 
Great  minds  do  indeed  react  upon  the  so- 
ciety which  has  made  them  what  they  are; 
but  they  only  pay  with  interest  what  they 
have  received.  We  extol  Bacon,  and  sneer 
at  Aquinas;  but  if  their  situations  had -been 
changed,  Bacon  might  have  been  the  Angel- 


218  A   STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

ical  Doctor,  the  most  subtle  Aristotelian  of 
the  schools ;  the  Dominican  might  have  led 
out  the  sciences  from  their  house  of  bond- 
age. If  Luther  had  been  born  in  the  tenth 
century,  he  would  have  effected  no  reforma- 
tion." 

The  very  same  thought  is  expressed  by 
Alison  in  his  essay  on  Bossuet,  when  he 
says :  "  How  much  soever  we  may  ascribe— 
and  sometimes  with  justice  ascribe — to  the 
force  and  ascendant  of  individual  genius, 
nothing  is  more  certain  than  that,  in  the 
general  case,  it  is  external  events  and  cir- 
cumstances which  give  a  certain  bent  to  hu- 
man speculation,  and  that  the  most  original 
thought  is  rarely  able  to  do  much  more  than 
anticipate  by  a  few  years  the  simultaneous 
efforts  of  inferior  intellects." 

Matthew  Arnold  also  recognizes  the  weight 
of  circumstances.  He  writes  :  ' '  For  the 
creation  of  a  master-work  of  literature  two 
powers  must  concur,  the  power  of  the  man 
and  the  power  of  the  moment,  and  the  man 
is  not  enough  without  the  moment." 

And  the  foregoing  opinions  are  substan- 


INFLUENCE   OF   THE   AGE.  219 

tially  indorsed  in  the  following  pithy  utter- 
ance from  Emerson  :  "The  greatest  genius 
is  the  most  indebted  man." 

Is  an  enlightened  age  favorable  to  the 
development  of  genius?  Addison  locates 
one  of  his  two  kinds  of  great  men  in  such 
an  age,  and  says  of  such:  "This  class  of 
great  geniuses  are  those  that  have  formed 
themselves  by  rules,  and  submitted  the 
greatness  of  their  natural  talents  to  the  cor- 
rections and  restraints  of  art.  Such  among 
the  Greeks  were  Plato  and  Aristotle;  among 
the  Romans,  Virgil  and  Tully;  among  the 
English,  Milton  and  Sir  Francis  Bacon.  The 
genius  in  both  these  classes  of  authors  [the 
first  class  being  men  who  have  sprung  to 
celebrity  without  educational  aids]  may  be 
equally  great,  but  shows  itself  after  a  differ- 
ent manner.  In  the  first  it  is  like  a  rich  soil 
in  a  happy  climate,  that  produces  a  whole 
wilderness  of  noble  plants,  rising  in  a  thou- 
sand beautiful  landscapes,  without  any  cer- 
tain order  or  regularity.  In  the  other  it  is 
the  same  rich  soil,  under  the  same  happy  cli- 
mate, that  has  been  laid  out  in  walks  and 


220  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

parterres,  and  cut  into  shape  and  beauty  by 
the  skill  of  the  gardener." 

It  seems  to  be  the  general  opinion,  how- 
ever, that  genius  and  that  power  which 
comes  from  intellectual  discipline,  and  is 
ministered  to  by  a  high  degree  of  surround- 
ing culture,  are  incompatible,  or  at  least  un- 
neighborly. 

Just  as  the  highest  degree  of  homoge- 
neousness,  thickness,  and  evenness  in  glass 
detracts  from  its  susceptibility  to  the  most 
brilliant  color  effects,  so  extraordinary  cult- 
ure, it  is  thought,  tends  to  interfere  with 
the  finest  displays  of  genius. 

In  his  essay  on  Dryden,  Macaulay  uses 
these  expressions  :  "It  seems  that  the  cre- 
ative faculty  and  the  critical  faculty  can  not 
exist  together  in  their  highest  perfection. 
While  he  [referring  to  Shakespeare]  aban- 
dons himself  to  the  impulse  of  his  imagina- 
tion, his  compositions  are  not  only  the  sweet- 
est and  the  most  sublime,  but  also  the  most 
faultless  that  the  world  has  ever  seen;  but 
as  soon  as  his  critical  powers  come  into  play 
he  sinks  to  the  level  of  Cowley,  or  rather  he 


INFLUENCE  OF  THE  AGE.  221 

does  ill  what  Cowley  did  well.  The  only 
thing  wanting  to  make  his  works  perfect  was 
that  he  should  never  have  troubled  himself 
with  thinking  whether  they  were  good  or  not. 

"The  few  great  works  of  imagination 
which  appear  in  a  critical  age  are,  almost 
without  exception,  the  works  of  uneducated 
men.  Thus,  at  a  time  when  persons  of  qual- 
ity translated  French  romances,  and  when 
the  universities  celebrated  royal  deaths  in 
verses  about  Tritons  and  Fauns,  a  preaching 
tinker  produced  the  Pilgrim's  Progress. 
And  thus  a  ploughman  startled  a  genera- 
tion, which  had  thought  Hayley  and  Beattie 
great  poets,  with  the  adventures  of  Tarn 
O'Shanter." 

In  one  of  his  astute,  graceful,  and  eloquent 
essays,  Alison  declares:  "Genius  sinks  in 
the  progress  of  society,  as  much  as  science 
and  the  arts  rise.  Originality  perishes 
amidst  acquisition.  Freshness  of  concep- 
tion is  its  life;  like  the  flame,  it  burns  fierce 
and  pure  in  the  first  gales  of  a  pure  atmos- 
phere, but  languishes  and  dies  in  that  pol- 
luted by  many  breaths." 


222  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

And  the  same  author  proceeds  to  account 
for  this  incompatibility  between  creative 
genius  and  enlightened  environments  in  the 
following  passage : 

"There  is  a  most  grievous  impediment 
to  genius  in  later,  or,  as  we  term  them, 
more  civilized  times,  from  which,  in  earlier 
ages,  it  is  wholly  exempt.  Criticism,  public 
opinion,  the  dread  of  ridicule,  too  often 
crush  the  strongest  minds.  The  weight  of 
former  examples,  the  influence  of  early  hab- 
its, the  halo  of  long-established  reputation, 
force  original  genius  from  the  untrodden 
path  of  invention  into  the  beaten  one  of  imi- 
tation. Early  genius  feels  itself  overawed 
by  the  colossus  which  all  the  world  adores; 
it  falls  down  and  worships  instead  of  con- 
ceiving. The  dread  of  ridicule  extinguishes 
originality  in  its  birth.  Immense  is  the  in- 
cubus thus  laid  upon  the  efforts  of  genius. 
It  is  the  chief  cause  of  the  degradation  of 
taste,  the  artificial  style,  the  want  of  original 
conception,  by  which  the  literature  of  old 
nations  is  invariably  distinguished.  The 
early  poet  or  painter  who  portrays  what  he 


INFLUENCE   OF  THE  AGE.  223 

feels  or  has  seen,  with  no  anxiety  but  to  do 
so  powerfully  and  truly,  is  relieved  of  a  load 
which  crushes  his  subsequent  compeers  to 
the  earth.  Mediocrity  is  ever  envious  of  gen- 
ius— ordinary  capacity  of  original  thought. 
Such  envy  in  early  times  is  innocuous,  or 
does  not  exist,  at  least  to  the  extent  which  is 
felt  so  baneful  in  subsequent  periods;  but  in 
a  refined  and  enlightened  age  its  influence 
becomes  incalculable.  Whoever  strikes  out 
a  new  region  of  thought  or  composition, 
whoever  opens  a  fresh  vein  of  imagery  or 
excellence,  is  persecuted  by  the  critics.  He 
disturbs  settled  ideas,  endangers  established 
reputation,  brings  forward  rivals  to  domi- 
nant fame.  That  is  sufficient  to  render  him 
the  enemy  of  all  existing  rulers  in  the  world 
of  taste.  Racine's  tragedies  were  received 
with  such  a  storm  of  criticism  as  well-nigh 
cost  the  sensitive  author  his  life;  and  Rous- 
seau was  so  rudely  handled  by  contemporary 
writers  on  his  first  appearance  that  it  con- 
firmed him  in  his  morbid  hatred  of  civiliza- 
tion. The  vigor  of  this  great  man,  indeed, 
overcame  the  obstacles  created  by  contem- 


224  A   STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

porary  envy;  but  how  seldom,  especially  in 
a  refined  age,  can  genius  effect  such  a  prod- 
igy !  how  often  is  it  crushed  in  the  outset  of 
its  career,  or  turned  aside  into  the  humble 
and  unobtrusive  path  of  imitation,  to  shun 
the  danger  with  which  that  of  originality  is 
beset!" 

It  will  be  noticed  that  in  the  foregoing 
criticism  the  influence 'of  learning  is  repre- 
sented to  be  inimical  to  but  one  sort  of  gen- 
ius— that  in  which  imagination  constitutes 
the  preponderating  element.  We  think  it 
can  not  be  doubted  that  the  chief  works  of 
the  most  nearly  pure  imagination  among 
every  people  have  originated  either  in  the 
earliest  —  the  least  lettered — years  of  their 
national  existence,  or  else  with  authors  who 
themselves  were  unschooled,  or  else,  if  edu- 
cated, have  proudly  chosen  to  rely  upon 
their  own  intellectual  birth-dower.  Such 
surely  is  the  history  of  such  works  as  the 
Iliad  and  the  Odyssey,  the  Arabian  Nights 
Entertainments,  the  Nibelungen  Lied,  Don 
Quixote,  the  Arthurian  Legends,  the  Canter- 
bury Tales,  the  Robin  Hood  Ballads,  the 


INFLUENCE   OF  THE  AGE.  225 

Faerie  Queen,  Pilgrim's  Progress,  and  others 
of  a  like  prevailingly  imaginative  order  of 
composition. 

The  case  is  different,  however,  with  all 
other  orders  of  genius.  Every  known  ma- 
chine and  mechanical  principle  aids  the  in- 
ventor in  devising  improved  methods  or  in 
hitting  out  new  processes.  Every  additional 
fact  and  law  in  science  only  the  more  com- 
pletely equips  the  investigator  for  detecting 
new  phenomena  or  new  functions  of  well- 
known  agents.  No  past  period  in  the  his- 
tory of  science  or  of  mechanical  invention 
has  been  so  luxuriant  in  increase  of  knowl- 
edge or  so  affluent  in  its  accumulated  stores 
of  specific  intelligence  as  has  the  last  half- 
century;  and  yet  within  this  very  period  of 
noontide  illumination  have  been  discovered 
some  of  the  grandest  scientific  truths  ever 
known  to  man,  and  some  of  the  most  ingen- 
ious, useful,  and  wonderful  inventions  ever 
contrived  by  the  human  mind.  Genius, 
then,  of  the  scientific  and  inventive  order, 
would  seem  to  thrive  upon  multiplication  of 
facts;  and  the  more  brilliant  and  numerous 

16 


226  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

the  lights  of  knowledge  turned  upon  it,  the 
intenser  its  own  reflections  and  the  more 
dazzling  its  native  coruscations. 

But  what  we  have  claimed  for  these  two 
particular  orders  of  genius — the  scientific 
and  the  inventive — is  equally  applicable  to 
all  sorts  of  constructive,  synthetic,  and  gen- 
eralizing geniuses.  Facts,  truths,  principles, 
these  are  the  raw  materials  upon  which  they 
work,  and  out  of  which  they  weave  their  fine- 
textured  systems,  or  smelt  their  golden  laws. 
The  more  prolific,  then,  the  age  in  these  essen- 
tial knowledges,  the  greater  the  opportuni- 
ties and  incentives  of  the  geniuses  of  that 
age  for  distinguished  achievements.  An  en- 
lightened age,  therefore,  must  be  regarded  as 
not  only  favorable  for  the  rise  and  maturity 
of  geniuses  generally,  but  as  absolutely 
essential  to  such  a  consummation. 

One  variety  only  can  claim  exemption  from 
this  general  rule,  and  that,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  the  kind  that  either  spins  its  marvelous 
fabrics  quite  exclusively  out  of  the  imma- 
terial essences  of  imagination  pure  and  sim- 
ple, or  else  restricts  its  activity  to  those 


INFLUP:NCE  OF  THE  AGE.  227 

fundamental  sentiments  and  emotions  of 
mankind  which,  in  every  clime  and  age  of 
the  world,  have  remained,  and  always  will 
remain,  substantially  unchanged.  The  phi- 
losopher in  physics,  in  mechanics,  in  politics, 
in  religion,  in  sociology,  in  morals,  in  aesthet- 
ics, must  predicate  his  own  original  triumphs 
upon  a  knowledge,  if  not  of  all  that  has  pre- 
ceded him  in  his  special  field  of  inquiry, 
then  certainly  of  the  best  of  such,  and  the 
broader  and  more  exact  such  knowledge,  the 
surer  his  chances  of  original  exploit  and  the 
more  lustrous  such  exploit;  but  the  poet  and 
the  romancist  may,  in  a  great  measure,  dis- 
pense with  the  officious  services  of  learning, 
though  there  is  no  necessity  for  their  so 
doing;  and  the  instances  of  such  independ- 
ence are  comparatively  few. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

ENVIRONMENT. —  INFLUENCE   OF   THE   AGE — 
CONTINUED. 

The  Great  Geniuses  of  tlie  Race  center  around  the  Fourth  and 
Fifth  Centuries  before  Christ,  and  the  Sixteenth,  Seven- 
teenth, Eighteenth,  and  Nineteenth  of  our  own  Era. — The 
Geniuses  of  the  Ante- Christian  Centuries  liave  belonged 
almost  entirely  to  tlie  Greek  Nationality. — Reasons  for 
this  Monopoly. — The  four  Genius-attracting  Centuries  of 
the  Christian  Era  considered  in  Chronological  Order. — 
Preparatory  Events. — The  discovery  of  Gunpowder,  inven- 
tion of  the  Mariner's  Compass,  rounding  of  Cape  of  Good 
Hope,  discovery  of  America,  revival  of  Literature  and  of 
the  Arts  and  Sciences,  and  tlie  Reformation. — The  Six- 
teenth Century — its  Wars,  its  Scientific  Progress,  its 
wonderful  Art  and  Literary  developments. — The  Seven- 
teenth Century. — Rise  of  tlie  Spirit  of  Nationality. —  Wars 
of  the  Century,  and  its  Illustrious  Military  Leaders. — Its 
Intellectual  Movements. — Tlie  Golden  Age  of  France. — 
Literature  and  Science  in  England,  and  Art  on  the  Con- 
tinent. 

If  we  arrange  the  names  of  acknowledged 
geniuses  tinder  the  various  centuries  in  which 
they  have  severally  nourished,  we  shall  find 
them  grouped  around  certain  chronological 
nodes,  which  we  can  not  fail  to  notice  are 
both  few  in  number  and  peculiar  as  to 
location.  Of  those  who  lived  before  the 

15 


230  A   STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

Christian  era,  by  far  the  greater  number  will 
be  met  with  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries; 
while  the  sixteenth,  seventeenth,  eighteenth, 
and  nineteenth  centuries  quite  monopolize 
those  who  have  flourished  since  the  time  of 
Christ.  The  latter  number,  too,  is  quite 
equally  divided  between  the  four  centuries 
named. 

The  query  very  naturally  arises,  Why  this 
peculiar  and  very  irregular  distribution  of 
geniuses?  What  extraordinary  and  spe- 
cially propitious  influences  belonged  to  these 
above-named  centuries,  that  caused  them  to 
act  like  mighty  intellectual  magnets,  attract- 
ing to  themselves  the  finest  tempered  and 
most  sterling  metal  of  the  human  race  ?  Let 
us  consider  briefly  the  social,  political,  and 
intellectual  characteristics  of  these  excep- 
tionally fruitful  centuries,  and  see,  if  we  can 
discover  any  necessary  connection  between 
them  and  the  illustrious  minds  that  adorned 
them. 

Let  us  attend,  first,  to  the  two  centuries 
that  lie  before  the  Christian  era.  Of  course, 
in  the  civilizations  that  preceded  these  peri- 


INFLUENCE   OF  THE   AGE.  231 

ods  there  are  to  be  found,  at  intervals, 
isolated  names  of  illustrious  men,  such  as 
Confucius,  Nebuchadnezzar,  Sesostris,  Moses, 
David,  Solomon,  Zoroaster,  Cyrus;  but  it 
must  be  owned  that  our  knowledge  of  those 
early  ages  and  Oriental  peoples  is  so  scanty 
and  unsatisfactory,  that  we  are  precluded 
from  forming  any  definite  notions  of  the 
social  and  intellectual  environments  of  the 
few  extraordinary  men  whose  names  have 
survived,  but  who  themselves  are  hardly 
more  than  mythic.  Excepting  from  this 
remark  the  names  of  Moses,  David,  and  Sol- 
omon, still  must  we  exclude  them  from  our 
present  consideration,  upon  the  ground  of 
the  accredited  supernatural  influences  by 
which  they  were  actuated.  Well-authenti- 
cated and  purely  human  factors  are  the  only 
ones  we  feel  warranted  in  dealing  with  in 
our  present  inquiry.  And  so  we  come  to 
the  two  centuries  before  Christ — the  fourth 
and  fifth — within  which  we  find  gathered  a 
remarkable  number  of  illustrious  men,  and 
concerning  which  we  have  sufficient  data  to 
enable  us  to  judge  intelligently  of  their 
peculiar  social  and  political  institutions. 


232  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

A  fact  still  more  surprising  than  that 
which  restricts  the  geniuses  of  the  ante- 
Christian  era  to  two  consecutive  centuries  is 
this:  these  geniuses,  almost  without  excep- 
tion, belonged  to  one  and  the  same  nation- 
ality— the  Greek. 

This  people,  the  most  remarkable  that  has 
ever  arisen,  had  been  forming  for  an  indefi- 
nite period  anterior  to  the  times  now  referred 
to.  Originally  of  a  strong,  active,  aggressive 
stock,  they,  by  the  mountainous  character 
of  their  country  and  its  extraordinary  expos- 
ure to  the  sea,  had  been  developed  into  a 
courageous,  independent,  freedom  -  loving 
people  at  home,  while  abroad  they  were 
bold,  enterprising,  commercial,  and  colony- 
planting.  Domestic  rivalries  discovered  their 
governmental  talents,  as  well  as  their  mili- 
tary energies,  to  the  utmost,  while  contact 
with  the  older  Eastern  civilizations  enabled 
them  to  cull  thence  the  choicest  products  of 
those  riper  experiences.  Then  the  mild  and 
equable  climate  of  their  peninsular  home — 
its  all  but  cloudless  sky,  its  endless  variety 
of  valley,  mountain,  and  water-margin— these 


INFLUENCE   OF   THE   AGE.  233 

physical  environments,  through  the  agency 
of  poet  and  philosopher,  had  wrought  in  the 
preternaturally  susceptible  Greek  mind  a 
fabric  of  cosmogonical  and  theogonical  con- 
ceptions more  elaborate,  significant,  and 
ideally  beautiful  than  anything  before 
known  of  among  men. 

Up  to  the  fifth  century  before  Christ,  if 
we  may  discard  the  great  event  of  her  mythic 
cycle — the  Trojan  War — Greece  had  achieved 
no  foreign  military  exploit,  neither  were  any 
of  her  internal  struggles  of  national  impor- 
tance. But  just  at  this  time  occurred  the 
event  which  called  forth  into  their  fullest 
action  all  those  teachings  of  liberty,  of  patri- 
otism, of  personal,  local,  and  national  prow- 
ess, of  poetic  fervor,  of  oratory,  and  of 
national  piety,  that  the  five  or  six  centuries 
of  previous  domestic  training  had  engen- 
dered and  stored  up  in  this  remarkable 
people.  Her  whole  preceding  history  may 
be  regarded  as  her  childhood  and  youth,  and 
the  domestic  contentions  of  that  period  as 
the  athletic  exercises  of  the  gymnasium, 
while  the  present  event — the  Persian  War — 


234  A   STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

marks  the  commencement  of  her  full-grown, 
her  Amazonian  maturity.  And  what  a  ma- 
turity that  proved  to  be  that  could  maintain 
itself  against,  nay,  overcome,  such  tremen- 
dous odds  as  were  hurled  against  it  in  those 
two  Persian  invasions — odds  in  numbers,  in 
military  equipment  and  supplies,  and  in  the 
experience  of  arms  and  prestige  of  conquest ! 
And  what  a  salutary  effect  the  disclosure  of 
the  innate  military  genius  of  the  people  had 
upon  their  whole  subsequent  development ! 
It  was  devoted,  not,  as  with  the  Romans,  to 
foreign  aggressions,  but,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  Spartans,  to  perfecting  a  complete  do- 
mestic military  establishment,  and,  as  with 
the  Athenians,  in  evolving  a  form  of  govern- 
ment that  secured  to  every  citizen  fullest 
liberty  of  action,  and  stimulated  him  to 
most  ambitious  endeavor. 

Is  it  any  wonder,  then,  that  events  which 
called  forth,  as  their  inevitable  results,  the 
extremest  exercise  of  such  qualities  as  patri- 
otism, physical  and  moral  courage,  and 
piety,  and,  as  their  remoter  consequences, 
the  privilege  of  and  incitement  to  the  fullest 


INFLUENCE  OF   THE  AGE.  235 

display  of  the  human  faculties  in  the  direc- 
tion of  art,  poetry,  philosophy,  statecraft, 
commerce — is  it  any  wonder  that  such  events 
should  have  discovered,  in  all  departments 
of  human  endeavor,  men  endowed  with 
extraordinary  powers  of  mind?  And  so, 
immediately  following,  if  not  attending, 
these  great  social  and  political  disturbances, 
we  find  coming  to  light  the  greatest  number 
of  the  greatest  geniuses  that  flourished  in 
any  one  or  two  centuries  anterior  to  the 
Christian  era,  of  which  we  have  reliable  data. 
The  lives  of  the  three  greatest  dramatic 
poets  of  Greece  were,  in  a  truly  remarkable 
manner,  connected  with  the  battle  of  Sala- 
mis;  for  ^schylus  fought  in  the  ranks  upon 
that  occasion,  Sophocles  was  one  of  the 
chorus  of  youths  that  aided  in  celebrating 
the  victory,  and  Euripides  was  born  on  the 
day  of  the  engagement.  Moreover,  the 
events  of  the  Persian  War,  and  the  phenom- 
enal development  in  literature  and  the  arts 
that  shortly  ensued,  became  the  informing 
themes  of  the  writings  of  these  dramatists. 
Contemporary  with  the  last-named  of  the 


236  A   STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

three  was  Aristophanes  also,  who  brought 
comedy  to  perfection.  Within  this  same 
period,  also,  the  prose  literature  of  Greece 
was  ushered  into  richest  bloom :  philosophy, 
under  the  undying  touch  of  Socrates,  Plato, 
and  Aristotle;  history,  by  the  indelible  pens 
of  Herodotus,  Thucydides,  and  Xenophon; 
rhetoric  and  oratory,  by  the  still  audible 
tongues  of  Isocrates,  Demosthenes,  and  JEs- 
chines:  Architecture  and  sculpture,  too,  the 
most  virile  and  enduring  of  all  the  rich  be- 
quests of  Greece' s  classic  days,  arose  to  their 
highest  perfection  under  the  speaking  chis- 
els of  Phidias,  Scopas,  Praxitiles,  and  Ly- 
sippus;  while  painting  achieved  its  first 
great  triumph  under  the  cunning  hands  of 
Parrhasius,  Zeuxis,  Timanthes,  and  Apelles. 
Leaving  now  the  two  centuries  preceding 
the  Christian  era  which  drew  to  themselves 
the  greatest  number — indeed,  the  only  sur- 
prising number— of  extraordinary  men,  let 
us  next  come  to  the  genius-attracting  cent- 
uries of  our  own  era.  These,  as  we  have 
already  indicated,  are  four  consecutive  cent- 
uries— the  sixteenth,  the  seventeenth,  the 


INFLUENCE   OF  THE   AGE.  237 

eighteenth,  and  the  nineteenth.  Out  of 
about  one  hundred  and  twelve  men  of  con- 
fessed genius  who  have  flourished  in  the 
nineteen  centuries  of  our  era,  the  seventeenth 
and  nineteenth  may  claim  a  little  less  than 
one-quarter  each  of  the  entire  number,  the 
sixteenth  about  a  fifth,  while  the  eighteenth 
comprises  nearly  a  third.  Inasmuch  as  our 
inquiry  concerning  the  unusual  richness  in 
geniuses  of  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  B. 
C.  would  seem  to  have  been  rewarded  by 
something  like  a  satisfactory  answer,  let  us 
next  scrutinize  to  the  same  end  the  sixteenth, 
seventeenth,  eighteenth,  and  nineteenth  cent- 
uries A.  D. ,  taking  them  in  their  chronolog- 
ical order. 

For  a  century  or  more  preceding  the  six- 
teenth, events  were  happening  which  were 
destined  to  bring  about  the  most  potent  and 
perpetually  wholesome  results.  The  discov- 
ery of  gunpowder  wrought  the  rapid  disin- 
tegration of  chivalry,  and  the  substitution 
of  entirely  new  methods  and  appliances  in 
the  art  of  war.  The  invention  of  the  mari- 
ner's compass  imparted  an  impulse  to  navi- 


238  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

gation  which  was  paralleled  in  the  domain 
of  letters  by  the  mighty  influence  attending 
the  introduction  of  the  printing-press. 
Guided  by  the  compass,  we  find  the  Portu- 
guese, during  the  latter  part  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  extending  their  explorations  along 
the  western  coast  of  Africa,  including  its 
outlying  islands,  rounding  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope,  and  mastering  a  passage  to  the  East 
Indies,  wherein  with  great  perseverance  and 
courage  they  succeeded  in  planting  commer- 
cial stations,  and  thereby  opened  a  new  and 
highly  advantageous  door-way  to  the  rich 
merchandise  of  the  Orient.  A  like  zeal  in 
other  quarters  brought  about  the  still  more 
hazardous,  as  well  as  more  noteworthy,  voy- 
age of  discovery  to  the  New  World,  and  the 
shortly  succeeding  conquest  by  Spaniards  of 
its  most  civilized  portions. 

A  little  anterior  to,  as  well  as  contempo- 
rary with,  the  foregoing  commercial  develop- 
ments, there  arose  and  flourished  in  Italy  a 
season  of  extraordinary  mental  activity. 
Splendid  courts  and  opulent  cities  contended 
with  one  another  as  patrons  of  the  arts  and 


INFLUENCE   OF  THE  AGE.  239 

sciences.  Reigning  families  and  several  of 
the  popes  set  about  collecting  manuscripts 
and  founding  libraries  and  schools,  while 
printing  establishments  sprung  up  in  numer- 
ous localities.  The  old  Latin  tongue  was 
sedulously  cultivated,  and  refugees  from 
Byzantium  introduced  the  study  of  the 
ancient  Greek  literature.  From  Italy  this 
intellectual  ferment  spread  into  Germany, 
where  universities,  gymnasiums,  and  educa- 
tional institutions  of  all  sorts  speedily  arose. 
But  mightier  and,  if  possible,  wider  than 
the  material  influences  of  vast  and  valuable 
discoveries,  than  the  intellectual  influences 
of,  perhaps,  the  most  useful  of  inventions 
and  of  a  revival  of  literature,  art,  and  sci- 
ence, was  the  spiritual  force  of  a  movement 
which  had  its  inception  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  fifteenth  century — we  mean  the  Reforma- 
tion. The  great  wave  of  intellectual  melior- 
ation of  the  century,  to  which  we  have 
just  referred,  produced  no  perceptible  effect 
upon  the  sacerdotal  orders  of  the  so-called 
Christian  church  of  the  period.  The  lower 
clergy  were  sunk  in  ignorance  and  immoral 


240  A   STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

sloth,  and  the  higher  were  largely  given  up 
to  sensual  indulgence  and  princely  extrava- 
gance— both  alike  quite  indifferent  to  the 
spiritual  and  holy  interests  of  their  sacred 
stations.  The  laity  very  generally  perceived 
this  spiritual  declension,  and  in  a  more  or 
less  aimless  way  sought  to  remedy  it;  but 
not  only  were  their  protests  not  heeded,  the 
truly  devout  both  of  the  laity  and  clergy 
were  at  last  stung  into  open  revolt  by  the 
alarming  abuses  of  the  head  and  of  the  lead- 
ing members  of  the  church.  Thus,  in  brief, 
originated  the  Reformation,  with  the  Au- 
gustine monk,  Martin  Luther,  as  its  master 
spirit. 

From  Germany,  its  cradle,  this  regenerat- 
ing movement  swept  over  the  whole  of 
Christianized  Europe  and  Great  Britain,  di- 
viding all  Christendom  into  two  uncompro- 
mising parties  —  those  who  sustained  tlie 
time -honored  authority  of  the  Roman 
church,  and  those  who  believed  a  thorough 
purification  of  religious  faith  and  practice 
necessitated  a  complete  separation  from  such 
church.  Church  and  state  in  those  days 


INFLUENCE   OF   THE   AGE.  241 

were  too  intimately  interwoven  not  to  be 
mutually  and  radically  affected  when  either 
member  was  assailed;  consequently,  domes- 
tic, civil,  and  national  disturbances  of  the 
most  sanguinary  nature  and  most  vital  con- 
sequences arose  out  of  this  difference  of  view 
regarding  spiritual  affairs,  and  shook  to  its 
very  foundations  the  fabric  of  society  dur- 
ing the  two  or  three  centuries  that  followed. 
Now,  taking  into  account  these  mighty 
happenings  of  the  latter  part  of  the  fifteenth 
and  the  whole  of  the  sixteenth  century,  is  it 
not  evident  that  the  material,  the  intellect- 
ual, the  social,  the  political,  and  the  spirit- 
ual interests  of  mankind  in  those  days  ex- 
isted in  a  state  of  phenomenal  ebullition  ?  Is 
it  any  wonder,  then,  that  men  of  capacities 
and  abilities  equal  to  the  extraordinary 
demands  of  the  day  should  have  arisen? 
With  such  battles  to  be  fought  as  those 
involved  in  the  struggle  between  the  House 
of  Hapsburg  and  France,  the  War  of  Relig- 
ion in  Germany,  and  the  achievement  of  the 
independence  of  the  Netherlands,  is  it  not 
reasonable  that  we  should  expect  to  en- 


242  A   STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

counter  such,  military  leaders  as  Charles  V. 
of  Germany,  Francis  I.  of  France,  Prince 
Maurice  of  Saxony,  William  of  Orange  and 
his  son  Maurice,  and  the  Spanish  generals 
Alba  and  Parma  ? 

In  like  manner,  the  religious  disturbances 
preparatory  to,  and  consequent  upon,  the 
Reformation  furnished  abundant  material 
and  propitious  conditions  for  the  production 
of  such  fervent,  fearless,  and  pious  cham- 
pions as  Luther  and  Melancthon,  in  Ger- 
many; Zwingle  and  Calvin,  in  Switzerland ; 
Arminius,  in  the  Netherlands ;  Knox,  in 
Scotland  ;  and  Cranmer,  in  England. 

Science,  too,  during  the  sixteenth  century 
experienced  several  of  the  mightiest  im- 
pulses it  has  ever  known.  In  Germany, 
Nicholas  Copernicus  exposed  the  utter  fals- 
ity of  the  Ptolemaic  system  of  the  universe, 
which  had  been  the  accepted  belief  for  fif- 
teen hundred  years,  and  demonstrated  the 
truth  of  a  theory — his  own — which,  it  is 
very  safe  to  predict,  will  last  as  long  as  the 
planets  whose  motions  it  defines.  Kepler, 
also  a  German,  discovered  his  three  great 


INFLUENCE  OF  THE  AGE.  243 

laws  respecting  the  orbits  and  motions  of 
the  planets ;  and  the  Italian,  Galileo,  made 
his  valuable  observations  concerning  oscillat- 
ing and  falling  bodies,  and  just  across  the 
border  of  the  century  invented  the  telescope 
and  microscope. 

In  this  century,  and  in  Italy,  we  also  meet 
«vith  the  most  gifted  artists  the  world  has 
3ver  known,  in  the  persons  of  Michael  An- 
gelo,  Raphael,  Titian,  Leonardo  Da  Vinci, 
and  Correggio,  who  marked  the  culmination 
of  that  art  movement  of  the  age  known  as  the 
Renaissance — the  new  birth  of  the  antique, 
and  the  abandonment  of  the  traditional  and 
conventional  for  what  was  natural. 

Literature  also  met  with  a  mighty  awaken- 
ing in  this  century,  and  gave  to  the  world 
not  a  few  of  its  foremost  poets  and  prose 
writers.  Such  in  England  were  Shakes- 
peare, Spenser,  Jonson;  in  Italy,  Macchia- 
velli,  Ariosto,  and  Tasso;  in  the  Spanish 
peninsula,  Cervantes,  Lope  de  Vega,  and 
Camoens ;  in  Germany,  Hans  Sachs,  Brandt, 
and  Fischart;  and  in  France,  Rabelais  and 
Montaigne. 


244  A  STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

THE   SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY. 

The  great  intellectual  and  religious  forces 
so  active  and  efficient  in  the  sixteenth  cent- 
ury, far  from  exhausting  themselves  in  that 
compass,  continued  to  operate,  certainly  with 
unabated,  if  not  increased,  vehemence  dur- 
ing the  century  immediately  following.  Par- 
ticularly was  this  the  case  with  the  religious 
movement  that  took  its  rise  in  the  Reforma- 
tion ;  for,  though  the  conflicting  interests  oi 
Catholicism  and  Protestantism  may  not  be 
alleged  as  the  primary  cause  of  the  many 
wars  that  characterized  the  seventeenth  cent- 
ury, yet  did  they  constitute  a  very  promi- 
nent feature  in  each.  Perhaps  the  new  and 
distinctive  phase  of  the  century  was  the 
spirit  of  nationality  that  arose  in  almost 
every  quarter.  The  Protestant  states  of  the 
German  Empire,  in  forming  a  union  and 
arraying  themselves  in  opposition  to  the 
tyranny  and  intolerance  of  Austria  and  the 
Catholic  League,  took  the  initial  step  toward 
German  unification.  France  and  Switzer- 
land undertook  the  hazardous  task  of  enlarg- 
ing their  respective  territories,  and  thereby 


INFLUENCE   OF  THE   AGE.  245 

augmenting  their  national  importance;  while 
England  not  only  achieved  her  rank  as  mis- 
tress of  the  seas,  but  also  began  to  regard 
continental  nations  with  magisterial  con- 
cern. 

What  a  seething  caldron  the  whole  of 
Western  Europe  and  also  the  British  Isles 
became  during  this  century !  In  Germany 
there  arose  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  dividing 
the  empire  into  two  religious  (?)  camps — the 
Protestant  Union,  assisted  by  France  and  the 
Dutch,  and  the  Catholic  League,  supported 
by  Austria  and  Spain.  When,  after  twelve 
years  of  carnage,  the  latter  party  seemed  to 
be  gaining  the  advantage,  Sweden,  moved 
not  only  by  her  Protestant  sympathies,  but 
also  by  the  belief  that  it  was  an  opportune 
moment  for  enlarging  her  own  borders, 
entered  the  fray.  Then,  some  five  or  six 
years  later,  when  the  supremacy  seemed 
again  to  be  about  to  rest  with  the  imperial 
party,  France  eagerly  embraced  the  oppor- 
tunity for  humiliating  her  rival,  Austria, 
and  for  adding  to  her  own  possessions,  by 
vigorously  aiding  the  Protestant  powers, 

16 


246  A   STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

until  a  peace  advantageous  to  the  latter  and 
herself  was  finally  conquered.  Later  still, 
the  efforts  of  Sweden  to  conquer  Poland  and 
Denmark  constitute  a  brilliant  figure  in  the 
century.  In  England,  the  subversion  of  the 
monarchy,  the  establishment  of  the  common- 
wealth, and  the  final  restoration  of  the 
house  of  the  Stuarts,  whereby  English  so- 
ciety and  institutions  were  stirred  to  their 
prof  oundest  depths,  quite  filled  up  the  entire 
century.  France,  also,  was  agitated  in  every 
member  of  her  body  politic  by  the  most 
bloody  conflicts  between  Catholics  and  Hu- 
guenots. Reference  has  already  been  made 
to  the  part  she  bore  in  the  Thirty  Years' 
War.  In  the  latter  half  of  the  century,  she 
waged  no  less  than  three  wars  for  the  acqui- 
sition of  territory — that  against  the  Spanish 
Netherlands,  the  one  against  Holland,  and 
a  third  against  Austria,  called  the  War  of 
Orleans.  Austria,  too,  in  addition  to  the 
internal  struggles  with  her  Protestant  mem- 
bers in  the  Thirty  Years'  War  and  her  con- 
flicts with  France  and  Sweden,  was  called 
upon  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  century  to 


INFLUENCE   OF  THE   AGE.  247 

quell  a  most  formidable  rebellion  upon  the 
part  of  Hungary,  assisted  by  the  Turks. 

What  admirable  opportunities  these  nu- 
merous struggles  between  the  leading  powers 
of  Europe  afforded  for  the  rise  of  men  of 
superior  administrative  and  military  abili- 
ties ;  nay,  what  necessity  did  they  lay  upon 
the  century  for  the  production  of  such  per- 
sonages !  And  the  history  of  the  times 
assures  us  that  the  supply  was  fully  equal 
to  the  demand.  Of  the  illustrious  military 
leaders  of  the  age,  the  Netherlands  furnished 
Tilly,  William  III.  of  Orange,  and  Admiral 
Tromp ;  Bohemia,  Wallenstein ;  Sweden, 
Gustavus  Adolphus  and  Charles  Gustavus  ; 
France,  Turenne  and  Conde;  Germany, 
Frederick  William,  Elector  of  Brandenberg ; 
Austria,  Charles  of  Lorraine  ;  and  England, 
Cromwell  and  Admiral  Blake.  Though 
diplomacy  and  statecraft  played  a  compara- 
tively inconspicuous  part  in  the  great  na- 
tional games  of  the  century,  their  functions, 
as  in  Cromwell's  case,  being  very  generally 
swallowed  up  in  the  prerogatives  of  the  ruler, 
yet  did  they  give  rise  to  a  Buckingham  and 


248  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

Hampden  in  England,  and  a  Richelieu  and 
Mazarin  in  France. 

But  religious  and  political  contentions  of 
the  widest  and  fiercest  character  not  only 
did  not  consume  the  mental  resources  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  but  seemed  rather  to 
incite  and  augment  intellectual  movements 
of  every  description.  Especially  was  this 
the  case  in  France.  So  unprecedented  was 
the  development  which  took  place  in  the 
reign  of  Louis  XIV. ,  in  foreign  and  domestic 
commerce,  in  home  industries,  in  divers 
schemes  of  colonization,  in  the  erection  of 
splendid  buildings,  both  public  and  private, 
in  the  creation  and  adornment  of  parks,  and 
in  the  public  patronage  of  the  arts,  the  sci- 
ences, and  literature,  that  it  has  well  been 
styled  the  Golden  Age  of  France.  Dramatic 
poetry  attained  its  crowning  excellence  in 
Corneille  and  Racine,  and  comedy  in  Moliere; 
while  Boileau,  LaFontaine,  Fenelon,  and 
Bossuet  won  distinction  each  in  his  peculiar 
literary  vein.  The  fine  arts  had  such  illus- 
trious representatives  as  Nicholas  Poussin 
and  Claude  Lorraine,  while  French  philoso- 


INFLUENCE   OF  THE   AGE.  249 

phy  realized  its  founder  in  the  eminent 
Descartes. 

Not  alone  in  Prance,  however,  was  there 
manifested  this  spirit  of  universal  aggress- 
iveness. In  all  her  neighboring  states  of 
Western  Europe  it  was  also  displayed, 
though  not  with  such  prevailing  and  aston- 
ishing brilliance.  In  England  it  experienced 
two  widely  different  but  quite  equally  glori- 
ous manifestations — the  one  a  literary  flow- 
ering, with  Milton,  the  sublimest  of  poets, 
Bunyan,  the  most  ingenious  of  allegorists, 
and  Butler,  the  bitterest  of  satirists,  as  its 
consummate  types.  The  other  was  a  move- 
ment in  which  England  figured  as  the 
monopolist  of  the  scientific  progress  of  the 
century,  as  proven  by  the  works  of  the  great 
expounder  and  propagandist  of  inductive 
philosophy,  Francis  Bacon  ;  by  the  discover- 
ies of  the  fundamental  properties  of  light 
and  the  law  of  gravitation  by  Newton ;  and 
by  the  demonstration  of  the  true  theory  of 
the  circulation  of  the  blood  by  Harvey. 

On  the  continent,  outside  France,  its  chief 
display  was  in  the  direction  of  art,  to  which 


250  A   STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

it  supplied  such  noted  names  as  Van  Dyck 
and  Rubens,  of  the  Flemish  school ;  Rem- 
brandt, of  the  Dutch;  Rosa,  Guido,  Zam- 
pieri,  of  the  Italian ;  and  Ribera,  Velasquez, 
and  Murillo,  of  the  Spanish. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

ENVIRONMENT. — INFLUENCE    OF  THE    AGE — 
CONTINUED. 

The  Eighteenth  Century — Its  Wars  find  their  Great  Generals 
— Its  Industrial  and  Commercial  Progress — Development 
of  the  Arts,  Sciences,  and  Literature — Dominancy  of 
French  Ideas — England's  Contribution  to  tJie  Literary 
and  Scientific  Triumphs  of  the  Century.— The  NineteentJi 
Century — Rise  and  Spread  of  tlie  Doctrine  of  Popular 
Sovereignty — The  Wars  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte — The 
American  Rebellion — Non-military  Currents  of  the  Cent- 
ury— The  Rise  of  the  Romantic  and  Idealistic  Schools  of 
Writers;  their  Displacement  by  the  Realists — Marvelous 
Development  of  the  Sciences — Imprints  of  the  Characteristic 
Social  and  Political  Movements  of  the  Age  upon  Modern 
Music  and  Art. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  conceive  of  times 
of  intenser  national  commotion  than  those 
constituting  the  eighteenth  century.  One 
unbroken  succession  of  wars  throughout 
Europe  quite  filled  up  the  whole  period. 
First  in  order  of  time  was  the  War  of  the 
Spanish  Succession,  which  took  place  be- 
tween France  and  a  part  of  Spain  on  one 
side,  and  Austria,  Prussia,  England,  arid 
Holland  on  the  other.  Then,  partly  con- 

(251) 


252  A   STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

temporary  with  the  foregoing,  occurred  the 
remarkable  engagements,  known  as  the 
Northern  War,  between  Charles  XII.  of 
Sweden  and  Peter  the  Great  of  Russia,  as- 
sisted by  Poland  and  Denmark.  In  the 
second  quarter  of  the  century  we  encounter 
the  War  of  the  Austrian  Succession,  in  which 
Austria  and  England  supported  the  claims 
of  Maria  Theresa  against  Prussia,  France, 
and  Bavaria.  The  third  quarter  was  signal- 
ized by  the  bloody  and  ruinous  Seven  Years' 
War,  with  Austria,  France,  and  Russia 
leagued  against  Prussia,  aided  by  England 
and  a  few  of  the  German  states ;  while  into 
the  last  and  most  sanguinary  quarter  of  all 
were  crowded  the  several  wars  between  Rus- 
sia and  Turkey,  the  struggle  resulting  in  the 
partition  of  Poland,  and  the  appalling 
French  Revolution.  England  experienced 
during  the  century,  at  home,  two  several 
attempts  to  restore  the  house  of  the  Stuarts 
to  the  throne,  and,  abroad,  the  irretrievable 
loss  of  her  American  colonies. 

As    has    been    already  observed    several 
times,  so  again  did  it  happen  that  the  large 


INFLUENCE   OF  THE   AGE.  253 

demands  of  the  century  for  men  qualified  to 
direct  its  numerous  and  gigantic  military 
operations  were  productive  of  an  adequate 
supply ;  for  on  its  battle-fields  we  meet 
with  such  soldier  geniuses  as  Charles  XII.  of 
Sweden,  Peter  the  Great  of  Russia,  Prince 
Eugene  of  Savoy,  the  Duke  of  Marlborough 
and  Lord  Nelson  of  England,  Frederick  I. 
and  Frederick  II.  of  Prussia,  Kosciuszko  ot 
Poland,  and  Washington  of  America. 

So  sulphurous  an  atmosphere  and  so  crim- 
son a  soil  as  those  of  the  eighteenth  century 
would,  at  first  sight,  seem  wholly  hostile 
conditions  for  the  growth  of  agriculture, 
trade,  the  industries,  art,  science,  and  litera- 
ture, which  are  generally  supposed  to  be  the 
natural  products  of  peaceful  times.  But  so 
it  came  to  pass  that  the  mighty  military  and 
political  convulsions  of  the  century  agitated 
also  the  more  distinctively  intellectual  cen- 
ters, and  set  them  in  a  state  of  extreme  flux 
and  reflux.  Accordingly  we  find  such  fore- 
most generals  as  Peter  the  Great  and  the  two 
Fredericks  of  Prussia  quite  as  zealous,  cou- 
rageous, and  effective  in  developing  the 


254  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

industrial,  commercial,  and  civilizing  inter- 
ests of  their  several  nations  as  they  were  in 
promoting  their  military  and  political  wel- 
fare. The  arts,  sciences,  and  literature  were 
fostered  not  only  by  the  leading  potentates 
of  the  age,  but  also  by  petty  princes,  who 
severally  sought  to  make  their  courts  and 
capitals  attractive  to  men  of  celebrity,  and 
who  stimulated  the  efforts  of  poets  and  lit- 
erati by  rewards  and  distinctions.  And  so 
in  Germany  especially,  during  the  second 
half  of  the  century,  literature,  science,  and 
music  realized  a  development  and  exercised 
a  refining  influence  such  as  modern  history 
can  hardly  parallel.  Letters,  in  one  or  other 
form,  had  such  worthy  cultivators  as  Klop- 
stock,  Lessing,  Herder,  Wieland,  Goethe, 
Schiller,  and  Bichter,  while  the  various 
phases  of  philosophic  thought  found  exposi- 
tors in  such  men  as  Lavater,  Mcolai,  Jacobi, 
and  Kant.  A  hitherto  insignificant  species 
of  refinement  received  a  phenomenal  impulse 
in  the  eighteenth  century — we  mean  music, 
intoned  by  such  incomparable  masters  as 
Bach,  Handel,  Grluck,  Haydn,  Mozart,  and 
Beethoven. 


INFLUENCE   OF  THE   AGE.  255 

In  France,  also,  all  varieties  of  intellectual 
endeavor  found  many  and  worthy  votaries; 
indeed,  French  ideas,  sentiment,  style,  and 
language  quite  dominated  the  intellectual 
and  governing  circles  of  all  Europe  during 
this  century.  Particularly  was  this  true  of 
the  literature  of  France  during  the  latter 
part  of  the  century.  In  it,  all  existing  and 
hitherto  reverenced  institutions,  whether 
civil,  ecclesiastical,  or  social,  were  ruthlessly 
assailed,  and  because  they  were  found  to 
contain  not  a  few  real  blemishes  and  abuses, 
the  whole  fabric  of  existing  society,  it  was 
proposed,  should  be  dashed  in  pieces,  and  an 
entirely  new  order  of  things  substituted. 
Foremost  among  the  disseminators  of  these 
iconoclastic  ideas  were  the  satirical  Voltaire, 
the  earnest  Montesquieu,  and  the  romantic 
Rousseau.  France's  contribution  to  the 
eminent  scientists  of  the  age  was  also  very 
considerable,  D'Alembert,  Buff  on,  Laplace, 
Linnaeus,  Lavoisier,  and  Bichat  being  of  the 
number. 

England,  too,  paraded  her  full  quota  of 
intellectual  conquerors.  In  literature,  the 


256  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

taste  for  the  ancient  classical  writings,  which 
sprung  up  in  the  latter  part  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  grew  and  extended  itself  quite 
over  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth,  bring- 
ing about  such  representatives  of  a  symmet- 
rical, delicate,  and  polished  style  of  compo- 
sition as  the  poets  Pope  and  Swift,  and  the 
prose  writers  Addison,  Johnson,  and  Burke. 
Later,  however,  this  formal  and  highly  arti- 
ficial style  gave  place  to  a  freer,  more  natural 
method,  as  seen  in  the  poems  of  Thomson, 
Gray,  Goldsmith,  Burns,  and  Cowper.  Two 
new  literary  forms  appeared  during  the  cent- 
ury— the  essay,  initiated  by  Steele,  Addison, 
and  Swift,  and  a  little  later  revived  by 
Johnson ;  and  the  novel,  or  prose  fiction, 
with  Defoe,  Richardson,  Fielding,  Smollett, 
Goldsmith,  and  Sterne  as  its  preeminent 
creators.  History,  though  not  originating 
in  the  century,  experienced  its  most  splendid 
fulfillment  in  the  writings  of  Hume,  Robert- 
son, and  Gibbon.  In  science,  there  appeared 
one  of  the  most  gifted  of  investigators  in 
Newton,  and  one  of  the  most  renowned  of 
inventors  in  Watt.  Of  statesmen  and  ora- 


INFLUENCE   OF  THE   AGE.  257 

tors,  we  meet  with  such  brilliant  examples 
as  Pitt,  Fox,  Walpole,  Burke,  and  Sheridan. 
Of  divines,  there  were  the  world-renowned 
Wesley  and  Whitefield.  And  of  artists: 
Hogarth,  the  satirist  and  moralizer;  the 
founder  of  English  landscape  painting,  Wil- 
son; the  celebrated  portrait  painters,  Rey- 
nolds and  Gainsborough;  and  the  historical 
artists,  West,  Barry,  and  Copley. 

Even  youthful  America  may  claim  to  have 
furnished  the  century  several  perennial 
names,  such  as  the  Adamses,  Hamilton, 
Franklin,  and  Jefferson. 

THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY. 

The  most  characteristic  feature  of  the 
nineteenth  century  was  the  rise  and  triumph 
of  the  principle  of  popular  partnership,  if 
not  sovereignty,  in  the  affairs  of  government. 
The  reign  of  monarchical  absolutism,  except 
in  Russia  and  Turkey,  was  forever  termi- 
nated, and  the  participation  of  the  masses 
in  the  making  of  the  laws  by  which  they 
were  to  be  governed,  and  also  in  the  admin- 
istration of  the  same,  was  assured.  As  tro- 

17 


258  A   STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

phies  of  this  popular  victory,  we  witness  the 
achievement  of  the  national  integrity  and 
independence  of  Greece,  of  Italy,  and  of  Bel- 
gium, the  unification  and  autonomy  of  Ger- 
many, and  the  oscillation  of  France  between 
communism  and  absolutism,  finally  subsid- 
ing in  a  republican  form  of  government. 

Estimable  indeed  must  we  regard  these 
national  results,  if  we  but  consider  the  enor- 
mous price  in  blood  and  treasure  that  was 
paid  for  them.  The  whole  continent  of 
Europe,  from  the  frozen  heart  of  Russia  to 
the  flinty  pillars  of  Hercules,  and  from  the 
shores  of  the  North  Sea  to  those  of  the  Black 
Sea,  was  marched  over  and  battled  upon  by 
armies,  some  of  which  in  numbers  and  equip- 
ment had  not  been  equaled  since  the  days  of 
.Alexander  and  Xerxes;  and,  responsive  to 
the  exigencies  of  the  time,  there  also  arose  a 
captain  whose  genius  for  military  exploits 
was  certainly  not  surpassed,  if  indeed 
matched,  by  that  of  any  commander  either 
of  ancient  or  modern  days — we  mean,  of 
course,  Napoleon  Bonaparte.  Other  lesser, 
though  still  great,  commanders  were  the 


INFLUENCE  OF  THE  AGE.  259 

English  Wellington,  Nelson,  Raglan ;  the 
Austrian  Archduke  Charles ;  the  German 
Bliicher  and  Von  Moltke,  and  the  French 
Ney,  Murat,  and  MacMahon. 

But  not  alone  in  Europe  were  momentous 
political  and  martial  events  transpiring. 
Half-way  between  the  third  and  fourth 
quarters  of  the  century,  there  occurred  the 
supreme  event  of  interest  on  the  Western 
Continent — the  testing  of  the  ability  of  the 
Republic  of  the  United  States  to  maintain 
its  integrity.  And  when  we  consider  the 
magnitude  of  the  ensuing  struggle — the  vast 
number  of  men  marshaled  on  each  side,  the 
treasure  expended,  the  number  and  ferocity 
of  the  battles  fought,  the  extent  of  the  field 
of  operations,  and  the  length  of  the  contest — 
the  American  Rebellion  must  be  recognized 
as  one  of  the  greatest,  if  not  the  greatest,  sin- 
gle war  of  the  century.  Of  the  numerous 
generals  of  more  than  ordinary  ability  that 
this  civil  struggle  brought  to  view,  Ulysses 
S.  Grant  and  Robert  E.  Lee  must  be  regarded 
as  the  most  conspicuous  representatives  of 
their  respective  sides. 


260  A    STUDY    OF   GENIUS*. 

Surpassing  in  magnitude  and  brilliance  as 
the  military  operations  of  the  present  cent- 
ury must  be  allowed  to  be,  when  compared 
with  those  of  preceding  centuries,  it  can 
hardly  be  claimed  that  they  hold  as  high  a 
degree  of  relative  preeminence  as  do  the  non- 
military  achievements  of  the  century.  Ab- 
solutism, not  only  in  its  political  form,  but 
in  every  form,  was  irreparably  burst  in 
pieces  by  the  internal  ferments  and  expan- 
sions of  the  age.  The  paralyzing  reverence 
for  existing  trammels,  whether  in  religion, 
science,  art,  literature,  or  politics,  was  sud- 
denly thrown  off,  and  men  everywhere  shook 
themselves  as  if  recovering  from  a  stupor, 
and  suddenly  caught  glimpses  of  a  day  of 
better  things. 

This  tendency  of  the  nineteenth  century 
toward  growth,  expansion,  and  largest  lib- 
erty of  thought  and  action,  has  left  the 
foot-prints  of  its  remarkable  progress  very 
plainly  upon  modern  literature.  It  first 
stormed  and  demolished  what  remained  of 
that  stronghold  of  literary  despotism  — 
eighteenth-century  classicism  —  numbering 


INFLUENCE   OF  THE  AGE.  261 

in  its  ranks  such  valiant  yeomen  as  Byron, 
Shelley,  Scott,  Richter,  Tieck,  Schlegel, 
Novalis,  Manzoni,  and  Heine.  Then,  as  the 
icy  control  of  the  hitherto  privileged  classes 
gradually  melted  away  before  the  hot  breath 
of  the  uprising  masses,  these  romantic  and 
idealistic  writers  in  their  turn  gave  place  to 
a  school  of  realists,  whose  mission  it  was  to 
depict  the  various  classes  of  society,  but 
especially  the  middle  and  lower  classes — 
the  hitherto  ignored  elements — with  all  pos- 
sible fidelity.  Conspicuous  among  these 
portrayers  of  living  persons  and  contempo- 
rary scenes,  we  notice  such  writers  as  Dick- 
ens, Thackeray,  George  Eliot,  Victor  Hugo, 
Balzac,  George  Sand,  Dumas,  and  Uhland. 

But  the  most  notable,  and  doubtless  the 
most  immediately  serviceable,  departures 
from  eighteenth-century  traditions  are  to  be 
met  with  in  the  domain  of  science.  Except- 
ing the  law  of  gravitation,  the  most  funda- 
mental and  comprehensive  truths  ever  known 
to  science  have  been  brought  to  light  during 
the  present  century — a  very  natural,  nay, 
an  all  but  inevitable  result.  Scientists  never 

17 


262  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

have  been  wanting  in  the  spirit  of  investiga- 
tion ;  but  in  days  gone  by  this  spirit  has 
been  so  obstructed  in  its  natural  activity, 
both  by  private  and  by  public  narrowness, 
as  to  jeopardize  its  very  existence.  But  the 
political  cyclones  of  the  early  years  of  the 
present  century  swept  away,  with  civil  des- 
potism, all  priestly  interference  with  the 
obviously  non-priestly  concerns  of  science. 
The  scientist  might  now  bring  nature  face  to 
face  with  mankind,  and  bid  her  speak  in  her 
own  clear,  cogent,  and  fascinating  objectiv- 
ity to  the  human  understanding.  And  the 
natural  result  has  been  that  in  the  last  fifty 
years  men  have  become  acquainted  with 
more  and  greater  truths  concerning  the  ma- 
terial universe,  and  have  thereby  possessed 
themselves  of  more  and  greater  appliances 
for  ministering  to  their  material  well-being, 
than  in  all  past  ages  combined.  Such  grand 
physical  truths  as  the  conservation  and  cor- 
relation of  all  forms  of  energy,  the  glacial 
theory,  the  undulatory  theory  of  light,  heat, 
and  sound,  and  the  doctrine  of  evolution, 
have  been  revealed  and  demonstrated 


INFLUENCE   OF  THE   AGE.  263 

through  the  labors,  directly  or  indirectly,  of 
such  investigators  as  Lyell,  Darwin,  Agassiz, 
Spencer,  Huxley,  Lubbock,  Bain,  Romanes, 
Helmholtz,  Clerk  Maxwell,  Morse,  Tyndall, 
Edison,  Bunsen,  Kirchoff,  Marsh,  Wallace, 
Von  Baer,  and  Pasteur,  resulting  in  the 
present  advanced  condition  of  the  sciences 
of  astronomy,  geology,  psychology,  chemis- 
try, and  electricity,  and  in  the  origination  of 
such  others  as  biology,  archaeology,  sociol- 
ogy, philology,  and  photography. 

The  fierce  political  and  social  storms  of 
the  century  produced  some  unique  and  ad- 
mirable effects  in  the  musical  culture  of  the 
period.  We  have  already  referred  to  the 
great  creative  work  accomplished  by  the  six 
master  composers  of  all  time,  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  eighteenth  century.  They  won 
for  music  what  the  ancient  Greeks  did  for 
architecture — the  establishment  of  certain 
grand  orders  of  composition,  which  in  har- 
mony of  proportion  and  exquisite  finish  of 
parts  have  come  to  be  acknowledged  as 
classical.  Their  less  gifted  successors  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  realizing  the  impossi- 


264  A   STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

bility  of  remodeling  or  adding  to  the  glories 
of  these  Doric,  Ionic,  and  Corinthian  tem- 
ples of  harmony,  and  yet  feeling  unwilling 
any  longer  to  worship  exclusively  therein, 
wisely  betook  themselves  to  the  construction 
of  humbler  and  more  familiar  forms  of  com- 
position. They  seized  upon  the  folk-sagas  of 
the  day,  upon  popular  Christian  sentiments, 
upon  enthusiastic  conceptions  of  woman,  and 
upon  the  exploits  and  sentiments  of  chivalry, 
and  while  treating  these  themes  with  becom- 
ing warmth  and  freedom  of  style,  imparted 
also  to  their  compositions  much  of  national 
feeling.  And  thus  was  ushered  into  being 
the  lyrical — the  romantic — period  of  musical 
composition,  illustrated,  in  one  or  other  of 
its  ramifications,  by  such  writers  as  Schubert, 
Weber,  Spohr,  Mendelssohn,  Schumann, 
Meyerbeer,  Cherubini,  Auber,  Rossini,  Boiel- 
dieu,  Verdi,  Callcott,  Balfe,  Wallace. 

With  all  of  the  foregoing  composers,  to  a 
greater  or  less  degree,  melody,  simple  and 
sensuous,  became  the  breath  of  life  of  their 
songs  and  operatic  creations.  Beginning  a 
little  later  in  the  century,  however,  and  com- 


INFLUENCE  OF  THE  AGE.  265 

ing  down  to  our  own  day,  this  last-named 
element  of  vocal  and  instrumental  composi- 
tion would  seem  almost  wholly  to  have 
disappeared,  giving  place  to  a  speaking, 
declamatory  method  in  voice  music,  and  to 
what  is  alleged  to  be  a  highly  descriptive 
and  minutely  picturesque  style  in  instru- 
mental pieces.  The  foremost  exemplifier  of 
this  latest  school — the  futurists,  as  they  are 
called — is  Wagner,  with  such  illustrious 
associates  as  Berlioz,  Liszt,  and  Rubinstein. 
The  various  epochs  already  noted  in  the 
history  of  the  literature  and  music  of  the 
nineteenth  century  are  also  discernible  in 
that  of  art.  Early  in  the  century  we  meet 
with  what  is  called  a  classical  school.  This 
was  a  decided  departure  from  the  affectation 
and  indecency  characteristic  of  the  art  of  the 
latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and 
was  brought  about  by  a  renewed  attention  to 
Greek  art,  consequent  in  part  upon  the  exca- 
vations made  at  Pompeii.  As  a  result  of 
this  study  of  the  works  of  classical  antiq- 
uity, properer  conceptions  of  the  symmetry 
of  the  human  form  and  greater  skill  in  por- 


266  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

traying  the  same  were  attained  by  artists, 
prominent  among  whom  we  may  name  such 
French  painters  as  David,  Gerard,  J.  P. 
Regnault,  Gros,  and  Pradhon. 

But  against  the  severe  restrictions  of  this 
classical  school  there  speedily  followed  a 
reaction,  in  keeping  with  the  political  and 
literary  currents  of  the  times,  in  favor  of 
greater  freedom,  both  as  regards  subject  and 
treatment — a  freedom  that  drew  its  inspira- 
tion directly  from  nature  and  the  social 
happenings  of  every-day  life.  This  move- 
ment, which  had  its  inception  among  David's 
own  pupils,  was  styled  the  romantic,  Ingres 
and  Delacroix  being  its  leading  French 
exponents.  In  Germany  the  same  reaction 
was  called  the  preraphaelite,  its  chief  repre- 
sentatives, Overbeck,  Cornelius,  and  Kaul- 
bach,  believing  that  the  decadence  of  art 
dated  from  Raphael,  and  that  therefore  a 
return  to  pure  motives  and  correct  methods 
could  only  be  secured  by  a  study  of  the  pred- 
ecessors of  that  great  artist. 

Another  of  the  pronounced  phases  of  art 
in  the  present  century  was  the  vigorous  re- 


INFLUENCE   OF  THE  AGE.  267 

vival — we  might  almost  say  creation — of 
landscape  painting,  properly  so  considered, 
indicative,  no  doubt,  of  the  growing  interest 
of  the  age  in  its  physical  surroundings.  Its 
most  meritorious  interpreters  were  Rousseau, 
Corot,  Millet,  Decamps,  Turner,  Constable, 
and  Crome. 

Two  diametrically  opposite  tendencies  in 
painting,  whether  of  figures  or  of  landscapes, 
have  marked  its  later  manifestations — the 
one,  called  for  a  second  time  preraphaelite, 
which  lays  extraordinary  emphasis  on 
minuteness  and  truthfulness  of  details,  and 
is  represented  by  Rossetti,  Hunt,  and  Millais ; 
and  the  other  called  the  impressionist,  which 
stakes  its  all  of  merit  upon  broad  and  gen  - 
eral  effects,  the  same  being  exemplified  by 
the  works  of  a  number  of  well-known  living 
painters,  particularly  of  the  French  school. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

ENVIRONMENT. — INFLUENCE    OF    THE   AGE — 
CONTINUED. 

The  Belatiom  as  to  Cause  and  Effect  of  the  Oenius  and  His 
Epoch. —  When  the  Most  General  Interests  of  Society  or 
the  State  are  to  be  affected,  the  Initiative  of  Influence 
Inlieres  in  the  Mass — Illustrated  in  such  Movements  as 
the  Reformation,  tlie  French  Revolution,  and  tlie  Ameri- 
can Rebellion. —  When  the  Immediate  Effects  of  a  Move- 
ment are  necessarily  restricted  to  a  few,  then  tJie  Individ- 
ual, the  Oenius,  becomes  the  Initiator — Illustrated  in  t?te 
Rise  and  Propagation  of  Various  Scientific  Theories,  and 
in  the  Formation  of  the  Various  Softools  of  Art,  of  Music, 
and  of  Letters. 

In  considering,  then,  somewhat  particu- 
larly, the  centuries  which  have  been  most 
prolific  in  geniuses,  we  find  them  to  be  the 
very  ones  that  have  given  birth  to  and  ma- 
tured the  widest,  intensest,  and  most  radi- 
cally revolutionizing  of  movements,  whether 
of  a  political,  religious,  industrial,  intellect- 
ual, or  sesthetical  nature,  that  have  hap- 
pened in  the  history  of  mankind.  This  fact 
would  seem  to  prove  that  great  geniuses  and 
great  epochs  go  together — that  where  grand 
sociological  dramas  are  enacting,  there  is 

(269) 


270  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

always  present  an  adequate  company  of 
superior  actors — in  fine,  that  where  a  general 
need  is  felt,  there  must  forthwith  arise  an 
all-sufficient  supplier.  The  co-existence  of 
the  two  is  undeniable;  but  do  they  stand 
related  to  each  other  as  cause  and  effect? 
And  if  so,  which  of  the  two  is  the  cause? 
This  is  almost,  if  not  quite,  as  puzzling  a 
problem  as  that  biological  one — which  is 
primordial,  the  egg  or  the  chicken  ?  So  far 
as  human  experience  can  inform  one,  neither 
is  possible  without  the  antecedent  existence 
of  the  other.  Is  it  equally  true  concerning 
the  genius  and  his  epoch?  Does  the  latter 
hatch  the  former,  or  is  the  genius  the  creator 
of  his  age  ? 

A  somewhat  careful  consideration  of  the 
question  convinces  us  that  neither  of  these 
factors  is  uniformly  antecedent,  and  that 
each  takes  its  turn  as  the  initiator.  And  this 
is  the  rule,  it  would  appear,  for  determining 
the  order  of  their  precedence :  When  the 
interests  to  be  affected  are  of  a  very  general 
character — such  as  those  of  society,  of  state, 
and  of  church — then  the  initiative  of  change 


INFLUENCE  OF  THE  AGE.  271 

inheres  in  the  mass — in  the  social,  political, 
or  religious  atmosphere,  as  it  were,  of  the 
times,  rather  than  in  the  preponderating 
influence  of  any  individual.  On  the  con- 
trary, when  the  immediate  effect  of  a  move- 
ment is  by  its  very  nature  restricted  to  the 
few,  as  is  primarily  the  case  with  all  changes 
that  appertain  to  the  scientific  or  sesthetical 
status  of  an  epoch,  then  the  primary  impulse 
is  found  to  proceed  from  an  individual  of 
extraordinary  force — the  genius.  Let  us  see 
if  this  theory  is  sustained  by  well-known 
facts. 

First,  let  us  test  it  in  relation  to  those 
great  events  of  history  that  have  interested, 
aroused,  and  transformed  whole  nations  and 
peoples.  The  Reformation  was  such  an 
event,  and  Martin  Luther  its  most  conspic- 
uous figure.  Did  Luther  originate  the  Ref- 
ormation, or  was  he  merely  a  product  of  it  ? 
This  is  readily  determined  by  the  fact  that, 
fully  one  hundred  years  before  Luther's  day, 
Wickliffe,  in  England,  and  Huss  and  Jerome, 
in  Germany,  decried  and  combated  the  very 
same  abuses  that  Luther  afterward  attacked. 


272  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

But  even  these  earlier  reformers  were  simply 
the  heralds  and  van-guard  of  a  large  and 
daily  increasing  number  of  the  general  body 
of  professing  Christians,  who  had  long  be- 
fore discovered  for  themselves  the  corrup- 
tions, both  in  doctrine  and  in  practice,  that 
had  crept  into  the  church,  and  who  were 
desirous  of,  and  at  times  not  a  little  clamor- 
ous for,  their  removal.  And  it  was  this  same 
general  clamor,  sounding  down  the  whole 
preceding  century,  and  gathering  volume 
with  every  decade  of  its  progress,  that  aided 
in  arousing  Luther' s  indignation,  and  finally 
emboldened  him  to  strike  to  the  ground  the 
brimming  cup  of  the  church' s  iniquity. 

The  French  Revolution  was  another  event 
not  only  of  national  but  even  of  conti- 
nental importance.  Are  we  to  infer  that 
this  great  political  and  social  upheaval  was 
the  immediate  effect  of  the  revolutionary 
doctrines  sown  by  the  writings  of  such  men 
as  Voltaire,  Montesquieu,  and  Rousseau,  or, 
later,  the  direct  fruits  of  such  inflammatory 
leadership  as  that  of  Mirabeau  and  Robes- 
pierre? Doubtless  the  influence  of  the 


INFLUENCE  OF  THE  AGkE.  273 

French  illuminative  philosophy  and  the 
Parisian  spirit  of  the  age  upon  the  more 
scholarly  classes  throughout  all  Europe  was 
great ;  and  we  know  that  substantial  reforms, 
such  as  the  abolition  of  the  order  of  the 
Jesuits,  of  the  Inquisition,  of  serfdom  and 
feudal  duties,  the  observance  of  religious 
toleration,  and  divers  amendments  in  legisla- 
tive and  judicial  affairs,  were  in  large  part  to 
be  attributed  to  the  almost  direct  influence 
of  the  above-named  writers.  But  the  Revo- 
lution itself,  which  was  the  vortex  into 
which  every  liberalizing  tendency  of  the 
whole  century  was  drawn,  and  there  raised 
to  the  extremest  tension,  was  for  the  greater 
part  a  movement  of  the  illiterate  and  desti- 
tute masses — the  very  class  upon  which 
printed  ideas  and  book-politics  must  of 
necessity  gain  but  little,  if  any,  hold.  Cer- 
tainly, if  any  commotion  ever  deserved  to  be 
called  popular,  it  was  the  French  Revolution 
—the  uprising  of  the  poor,  the  ignorant,  the 
unprivileged  masses  against  the  rich,  the 
schooled,  and  the  privileged  few.  It  was  not 
a  movement  instigated  by  one  trenchant  pen, 

18 


274  A    STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

inspired  by  one  eloquent  voice,  or  led  by  one 
skillful  sword ;  but  it  was  the  vox  populi 
itself,  emphasized  by  a  hurricane  of  unsol- 
dierly  weapons. 

The  late  American  Rebellion  was  another 
event  of  wide-reaching  interest.  Can  it  be 
alleged  that  this  fratricidal  struggle  was 
brought  about  by  the  writings  and  speeches 
of  certain  abolitionists  of  the  North  and 
other  certain  pro- slavery  advocates  of  the 
South?  It  would  be  idle  indeed  to  deny  that 
the  persistent  efforts  of  these  agitators  in 
both  sections  quickened  the  popular  compre- 
hension of  the  national  evils  involved,  on  the 
one  hand,  in  the  spread  of  slavery,  and  on 
the  other,  of  the  perils  to  the  institution 
itself  inevitable  upon  its  limitation,  and  on 
both  sides,  added  kindling  and  draught  to 
very  inflammable  prejudices.  But  the  nat- 
ural and  irrepressible  antagonism  that  exists 
between  free  and  enforced  labor,  especially 
in  a  government  professing  to  be  republican, 
the  unquestionable  superiority  of  the  former 
in  all  material  and  practical  respects — to  say 
nothing  of  the  relative  humaneness  and 


INFLUENCE   OF  THE   AGE.  275 

moral  justice  of  the  two — these  convictions 
and  perceptions  were  realized  to  no  small 
extent  from  the  very  beginning  of  the  na- 
tional experiment,  and  every  year  grew 
clearer,  more  general,  and  more  influential. 
The  utterances,  therefore,  of  Northern  aboli- 
tionists and  Southern  "fire-eaters"  did  not 
originate  the  popular  conscience  regarding 
slavery,  but  rather  voiced  it — did  not  inau- 
gurate the  War  of  the  Rebellion,  but  simply 
prefigured  it. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  history  of  inno- 
vations of  a  less  general  scope  than  the  fore- 
going, to  such  as  arise  in  the  development 
of  science,  of  literature,  and  of  the  arts. 
Are  these  the  outcome  of  popular  foresight 
and  insistence,  or  do  they  not  rather  origi- 
nate with  individuals  of  transcendent  force — 
the  geniuses  of  the  race  ? 

Had  anything  like  a  general  dissatisfac- 
tion been  expressed — nay,  had  even  the  then 
limited  circle  of  scientists  themselves  mani- 
fested any  disagreement  with  the  prevalent 
notions  of  the  Ptolemaic  system  of  the  uni- 
verse— before  the  obscure  astronomer  of 


276  A   STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

Thorn,  Nikolaus  Copernicus,  announced  and 
demonstrated  a  totally  different  scheme  of 
planetary  arrangement — the  scheme  which 
now  forms  the  basis  of  all  astronomical  sci- 
ence? Did  Kepler,  a  hundred  years  later, 
promulge  his  three  great  laws  respecting  the 
orbits  and  motions  of  the  planets,  and  did 
Galileo,  about  the  same  time,  accomplish  his 
discoveries  and  inventions  in  obedience  to  a 
popular  demand,  or  stimulated  by  any  sym- 
pathetic spirit  of  the  age  ?  Can  it  even  be 
alleged  of  the  great  scientific  truths  that 
have  come  to  light  during  the  present  cent- 
ury, to-wit :  the  conservation  and  correlation 
of  all  energy,  the  undulatory  theory  of  heat 
and  of  light,  the  glacial  theory,  evolution, 
or  of  the  great  inventions  of  the  century — the 
steamboat,  the  locomotive,  the  telegraph,  the 
telephone,  the  phonograph,  the  sewing-ma- 
chine, electric  light,  electric  and  hot-air  mo- 
tors— that  these  are  the  natural  outgrowth 
of  the  general  scientific  sap-flow  of  the  age  ? 
Not  at  all.  Columbus,  Copernicus,  Kepler, 
Galileo,  Newton,  Watt,  Stephenson,  Fulton, 
Morse,  Darwin,  Agassiz,  Edison — these  are 


INFLUENCE   OF  THE   AGE.  277 

not  the  passive  reflectors  of  the  concentrated 
scientific  glimmerings  of  their  respective 
ages,  but,  on  the  contrary,  are  they  the 
active,  the  unique,  the  isolated  generators— 
the  solar  and  stellar  emanators  of  hitherto 
unconceived  physical  ideas;  and  far  from 
being  encouraged,  urged  on,  and  cheered  by 
contemporary  popular  sentiment,  their 
strange  notions  and  inventions  have  been 
almost  invariably  regarded  as  so  many 
anarchistic  bombs  and  infernal  machines, 
stealthily  placed  under  the  foundations  of 
legitimate  science,  for  its  immediate  and 
complete  destruction;  while  they  themselves 
have  been  publicly  denounced  as  crack- 
brained,  impious,  malevolent,  and  have  been 
subjected  to  physical  tenures,  and  even  to 
death,  at  the  hands  of  civil,  ecclesiastical, 
and  so-called  scientific  authorities.  Indeed, 
we  doubt  if  out  of  the  whole  bulk  of  the 
world's  scientific  treasures,  past  and  present, 
a  single  idea  or  invention  can  be  named  to 
which  the  scientific  spirit  of  any  age,  or  the 
popular  acumen  of  any  locality,  may  lay  the 
claim  of  paternity ;  nay,  we  feel  authorized 

18 


278  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

in  affirming  that  every  scientific  novelty  the 
world  has  ever  known  has  had  to  battle  its 
way  to  public  acceptance  against  the  breast- 
works of  popular  prejudice,  the  bayonets  of 
popular  ridicule,  and  the  red-hot  shot-and- 
shell  storm  of  popular  persecution,  and  that 
their  final  triumph  was  due  alone  to  the 
indomitable  tenacity  and  inexhaustible  pug- 
nacity of  their  initiators — the  scientific  gen- 
iuses. 

Next  let  us  consider  the  history  of  the 
best  known  literatures  of  mankind — and 
first,  as  regards  their  most  meritorious  pro- 
ductions. Can  it  be  said  of  the  Canterbury 
Tales,  the  Faerie  Queen,  Paradise  Lost,  the 
Divine  Comedy,  Jerusalem  Delivered,  the 
Decameron,  Don  Quixote,  Hudibras,  Shakes- 
peare's  Dramas,  Faust,  Don  Juan,  Les 
Miserables,  that  they  were  the  consummate 
bloom  of  seeds  previously  sown  by  the  pop- 
ular hand,  and  that  their  authors  were 
therefore  only  the  mouth-pieces,  the  amanu- 
enses of  the  general  intellectual  dictation  of 
their  respective  epochs  ?  Do  the  receptions 
accorded  these  and  kindred  works  by  the 


INFLUENCE   OF   THE   AGE.  279 

publics  that  witnessed  their  birth  incline  us 
to  such  an  opinion  ?  What  past  period  of  lit- 
erary history  can  be  named  that  proved  a 
tenth  part  as  appreciative  of  these  master- 
works  as  is  the  present,  removed  though  it  is 
in  some  instances  by  hundreds  of  years  from 
their  natal  day  ?  Can  it  be  said,  then,  that  the 
authors  of  these  greatest  of  literary  works 
were  schooled  and  incited  to  their  achieve- 
ments by  the  intellectual  ferment  of  their  sev- 
eral times  ?  On  the  contrary,  do  not  the  facts 
compel  us  to  affirm  that  these  greatest 
authors  owed  but  little,  if  any,  of  their 
inspiration  to  the  literary  atmosphere  of  their 
own  day,  and  in  their  creative  intentions 
were  as  little  concerned  about  popular  favor 
as  the  latter  proved  regardful  of  them  ?  As 
the  result  shows,  their  labors,  whether  so 
aimed  or  not,  were  better  adapted  for  post- 
humous than  contemporary  appreciation, 
and  whatever  they  may  have  borrowed  of 
fact,  thought,  sentiment,  or  style  from  their 
own  or  past  centuries,  they  repaid  the  obli- 
gation with  compounded  interest,  and  in  a 
coin  whose  image  and  superscription  were  as 


280  A   STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

surprisingly  superior  as  they  were  immedi- 
ately uncurrent. 

Secondly,  let  us  view  the  question  of  pop- 
ular influence  upon  literary  production  as 
respects  the  various  schools  or  fashions  of 
literature — the  classic,  the  romantic,  the 
realistic.  Have  these  fashions  arisen  at  the 
bidding  of  public  taste,  were  they  con- 
cessions to  popular  demands,  or,  on  the 
other  hand,  were  they  the  joint  fabrics  of 
individual  authors,  whose  tastes,  more  par- 
ticularly as  to  style,  chanced  to  run  for  a 
time  in  the  same  general  direction  ? 

On  preceding  pages  we  have  endeavored  to 
point  out  how  that  each  of  these  literary 
periods  conformed  in  its  general  spirit  to  the 
national  humor  then  dominant.  This  fact 
can  not  be  denied — the  power  of  affairs  of 
state,  of  church,  and  of  social  life  to  impart 
a  characteristic  tinge,  at  least,  to  intellectual 
productions.  But  this  admitted,  how  in- 
scrutable the  modus  operand!  of  such  general 
influences,  and  how  unsatisfactory  the  at- 
tempt to  measure  such  with  any  exactness  ! 
It  can  not  be  likened  unto  the  impact  of  cur- 


INFLUENCE   OF  THE  AGE.  281 

rents  of  air  upon  aeolian  harp-strings,  for  in 
this  case  the  latter — which  would  symbolize 
the  author  —  are  too  completely  passive 
agents.  Rather  let  us  say  it  is  like  the 
power  of  vernal  breezes  and  sunshine  upon 
song-birds — it  provokes,  invites,  nay  compels 
the  exercise  of  a  talent  already  existing  and 
previously  operative,  though  not  so  effectively 
so  as  now.  Doubtless  the  bird  could  sing 
and  would  sing,  whatever  its  physical  en- 
vironment ;  but  the  sweetness,  gush,  and 
duration  of  the  song — are  not  these  largely 
dependent  upon  atmosphere,  sunlight,  and 
sylvan  quietude  ?  Yes.  But  then  is  it  not  also 
true  that  the  same  physical  conditions  co-ex- 
ist with  very  unequal  expressions  of  song 
upon  the  part  of  different  birds  ?  These  dif- 
fering results  must  be  accounted  for,  then, 
not  by  physical  environments,  but  by  the 
peculiarity  of  vocal  organization  in  the 
songster. 

Just  so  we  believe  it  is  with  the  character- 
istic expression  of  any  particular  literary 
epoch.  All  general  influences,  extraneous 
to  purely  literary  ones,  act  as  atmospheric 


282  A   STUDY    OF   GENIUS. 

modifiers,  which,  by  nitrogenizing  obnoxious 
elements  and  oxygenizing  agreeable  ones,  at 
length  select  into  full  flower  the  peculiar  lit- 
erary flora  of  the  period.  But  the  puissant 
seeds  of  that  dominant  flora  reside  alone  in 
certain  few  heroic  authors  ;  they  are  not  the 
product  of  any  community  or  period,  but 
simply  its  fittest  survival.  And  so,  when  we 
come  to  indicate  the  most  potent,  the  essen- 
tial of  the  causes  that  conspire  for  the 
production  of  any  particular  literary  epoch, 
we  must  fix  upon  such  unique  literary  gen- 
iuses as  Chaucer,  Dante,  Shakespeare, 
Goethe,  Richter,  Burns,  Scott,  Byron,  Hugo, 
Dumas,  Dickens,  Hawthorne,  and  the  liter- 
ary contemporaries  who  worked  in  sympathy 
with  them. 

Carrying  now  our  inquiry  into  the  realm 
of  art,  we  shall  not  take  our  stand-point 
further  back  than  the  Renaissance  of  the 
middle  ages.  Why?  Because  our  knowl- 
edge of  the  only  deservedly  noticeable  art 
period  prior  to  this — the  Greek — is  too 
scanty  and  inaccurate  to  enable  us  to  decide 
with  any  satisfaction  the  question  of  the  rel- 


INFLUENCE  OF  THE  AGE.  283 

ative  importance  of  the  influence  of  the 
art-seeking  community  and  the  art-producing 
individual.  We  know  fairly  well  that  the 
centers  of  Greek  population  were  very  gen- 
erally permeated,  during  the  fourth  and  fifth 
centuries  B.  C.,  with  a  love,  if  not  a  passion, 
for  the  beautiful  in  form  as  relates  to  archi- 
tecture and  statuary ;  and  we  also  know 
that  in  such  sculptors  as  Phidias,  Scopas, 
Praxitiles,  and  Lysippus  they  found  pre- 
sumably sufficient  interpreters  of  their  lofti- 
est conceptions ;  but  to  which  of  the  two 
factors  belongs  the  preponderance  of  merit 
for  bequeathing  to  all  posterity  architectural 
orders  and  sculptured  representations  of  the 
human  form  that  absolutely  preclude  either 
criticism  or  improvement,  is  a  matter  fitter 
for  speculation  than  demonstration.  We 
shall  therefore  move  our  point  of  observation 
some  two  thousand  years  nearer  to  our  own 
times,  and  thus  secure  a  field  of  vision  com- 
paratively clear.  And  so  we  find  ourself 
transported  from  the  midst  of  Greece's  most 
flourishing  art  era  into  the  field  of  the  most 
wonderful  florescence  of  all  modern  art — a 


!284  A  STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

period  eminently  worthy  of  its  illustrious 
predecessor  of  classic  times. 

Take  the  first  period  of  Christian  art,  that 
which,  originating  in  the  catacombs  of  Rome 
in  the  second  century,  maintained  its  indi- 
viduality almost  to  the  fourteenth.  Whence 
the  inception  of  that  general  breaking  away 
from  the  narrow,  stiff,  lifeless,  unnatural,  and 
prevailingly  ecclesiastical  conventionalism  of 
this  theologic  period,  which  resulted  in  the 
adoption  for  the  next  three  or  four  centuries 
of  a  method  that  drew  its  inspiration,  as  re- 
gards form,  color,  and  accessories  generally, 
directly  from  nature?  Shall  we  credit  the 
happy  revolution  to  a  sudden  and  compelling 
perception  of  the  Italian  people,  or  shall  we 
not  more  likely  find  it  in  the  influence  that 
a  certain  Grecian  sarcophagus  exerted  upon 
Niccola  Pisano,  and  through  him,  more  or 
less  directly,  upon  all  contemporary  and 
subsequent  sculpture  and  painting  ? 

And  the  growth  and  final  triumph  of  this 
naturalistic  tendency  of  religious  art — were 
they  the  outcome  of  the  general  interest 
taken  in  art  productions  and  the  munificent 


INFLUENCE  OF    THE  AGE.  285 

patronage  proffered  them  during  the  Re- 
naissance, or  were  they  not  more  immedi- 
ately attributable  to  the  bold,  original,  na- 
ture-loving, but  God-fearing  efforts  of  such 
representative  artists  as  Giotto,  Masaccio, 
Fra  Angelico,  Da  Vinci,  Angelo,  and  Ra- 
phael? 

We  may  concede  that  people  generally 
had  grown  weary  of  the  crudities  of  design — 
the  long,  near -placed,  half -shut  eyes  ;  the 
flat  figures,  heavy  outlines,  badly-drawn 
extremities,  and  lack  of  perspective,  upon 
which  their  eyes  had  been  obliged  to  gaze 
for  ten  or  more  centuries  past,  and  were  anx- 
iously casting  about  for  something  more  sat- 
isfying ;  but  is  it  at  all  probable  that  they  gen- 
erally realized  in  just  what  particulars  their 
art  was  deficient,  and  just  what  heroic  treat- 
ment would  set  it  right  \  However  that  may 
have  been,  we  are  certain  of  this — that  the 
master-artists  last  named  did  discover  the 
defects,  discovered  also  their  remedy,  and 
were  courageous  enough  to  act  up  to  the 
fullest  dictates  of  their  intelligent  percep- 
tions. It  was  they  who  stripped  art  of  its 


286  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

ill-fitting  externals,  and  preserving  all  that 
was  genuinely  immortal  of  it — its  spiritual- 
ity— rehabilitated  this  in  the  lovely  vesture 
of  the  art  of  ancient  Greece  and  still  more 
ancient  Nature.  The  public  simply  approved 
the  regeneration,  and  heartily  promoted  it. 

Why,  the  fact  that  the  history  of  art  is 
the  history  of  schools,  each  with  its  one  or 
two  master-spirits,  whose  peculiarities  were 
sedulously  imitated  and  multiplied  by  all 
the  disciples  of  that  school,  would  of  itself 
be  decisive  of  the  point  that  the  individual, 
rather  than  the  mass,  is  the  dynamic  agent 
in  the  production  of  the  various  aspects  of 
art  development.  Da  Vinci,  Angelo,  Ra- 
phael, and  Titian  were  contemporaries,  and 
Fra  Angelico  lived  but  a  generation  or  two 
earlier,  and  all  were  therefore  subjected  to 
the  same  general  political,  religious,  literary, 
and  social  influences;  and  yet  how  radically 
distinct  was  not  only  each  one's  style  of 
work,  but  also  each  one' s  art  motif !  No  one 
of  them  was  conventional ;  but,  contrariwise, 
they  were  all  preeminently  unique,  aggress- 
ive, iconoclastic. 


INFLUENCE   OF  THE  AGE.  287 

What  influence,  or  influences,  of  a  general 
nature  may  account  for  the  invention  of  oil- 
painting  by  the  brothers  Van  Eyck,  and  the 
ensuing  rise  of  that  army  of  painters  which, 
under  the  lead  of  such  artist-generals  as 
Diirer,  Holbein,  Rubens,  Van  Dyck,  Teniers, 
Rembrandt,  and  Kaulbach,  spread  all  over 
Europe  north  and  northwest  of  the  Alps, 
and  whose  distinguishing  characteristics 
were  elaboration  and  truth  of  detail,  deli- 
cacy of  execution,  richness  of  color  and 
ornament,  accessories  copied  from  ordinary 
life-scenes  and  highly  finished,  figures  pre- 
eminently realistic,  and  backgrounds  of  nat- 
ural scenery?  Moreover,  if  it  were  social 
environments  rather  than  the  initiative  tal- 
ents of  the  individuals  just  named  that 
begot  the  Flemish,  German,  and  Dutch 
schools  of  art,  how  did  it  happen  that  the 
art  tendencies  came  to  be  so  numerous  and 
so  heterogeneous  ;  producing  at  one  and  the 
same  time  portrait  painters,  genre  painters, 
painters  of  landscape,  of  animals,  of  water, 
of  interiors,  of  architecture,  and  of  still  life  ? 
The  influence  of  a  whole  people,  the  impulse 


288  A    STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

of  an  age,  the  weight  of  a  century,  ought,  it 
would  seem,  to  have  produced  results  of  a 
more  consistent  and  homogeneous  character. 
But  what  shall  we  say  of  the  art  of  Eng- 
land, which  of  all  modern  nations  is,  per- 
haps, the  foremost  in  this  line  of  aesthetical 
production  ?  Though  not  as  directly  exposed 
to  the  great  tidal  waves  of  public  opinion 
and  action,  that  have  surged  back  and  forth 
over  the  continent,  as  her  neighboring  coun- 
tries, yet  is  she  too  near  the  latter  not  to 
have  felt  in  a  very  perceptible  manner  the 
shock  of  such  mighty  movements.  Her 
political  institutions  and  her  literature 
clearly  attest  to  the  modifying  effects  of 
these  influences  from  across  the  Channel ;  but 
her  art,  so  preeminent,  is  yet  wholly  modern 
—indeed,  almost  entirely  of  nineteenth-cent- 
ury growth.  It  knows  nothing  of  the  eccle- 
siastical, the  classical,  the  Renaissance,  the 
preraphaelite,  the  naturalistic,  the  idealistic, 
or  any  other  of  the  epoch-making  terms  of 
painting  as  applied  to  the  history  of  art  on 
the  continent.  It  is  unquestionably  the  art 
of  individuals,  and  is  as  varied  and  idiosyn- 


INFLUENCE   OF  THE   AGE.  289 

cratic  as  were  the  peculiar  gifts  of  its  cre- 
ators. 

In  music,  too,  which,  like  English  paint- 
ing, is  also  of  comparatively  modern  date,  it 
is  not  easy  to  trace  the  effects  of  any  very 
general  influences.  Even  during  so  tumult- 
uous a  time  as  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  music 
seemed  to  have  lived  in  a  cloister — sacred 
from  every  rude  touch.  Particularly  is  this 
the  case  so  far  as  regards  the  works  of  the 
foremost  masters  of  the  art.  So  different 
were  they  from  all  which  had  preceded  them 
— so  superior  to  all  precedents — that  they 
have  been  recognized  as  constituting  a  Re- 
naissance in  the  history  of  music.  What  in 
the  atmosphere  of  his  day  suggested  to  Bach 
his  profound  studies  in  polyphony  and 
fugue  composition  ?  What  popular  demand 
incited  Handel  to  the  conception  of  his  sub- 
lime tone-heroics — his  oratorios — an  art  form 
never  before  known  ?  Hardly  less  inexplica- 
ble was  the  impulse  that  led  Haydn  to  the 
creation  of  his  symphonies,  Mozart  to  the 
production  of  opera,  and  Beethoven  to  the 
composition  of  works  whose  artistic  com- 

19 


290  A   STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

pleteness,  depth,  and  exaltation  of  feeling 
no  musician,  either  before  him  or  since,  has 
ever  attained.  The  productions  of  the  more 
immediate  successors  of  these  great  tone 
poets,  it  must  be  allowed,  do  partake  of  a 
palpably  popular,  social,  and  national  char- 
acter ;  but  when  we  arrive  at  the  latest,  the 
present  phase  of  musical  development  in  the 
compositions  of  such  artists  as  Berlioz,  Wag- 
ner, Liszt,  and  Rubinstein,  we  again  find 
ourself  puzzled  to  assign  any  cause  for  its 
existence,  outside  the  all-sufficient  one  of  the 
unique  and  splendid  endowments  of  the 
composers  themselves. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

ENVIRONMENT. — INFLUENCE  OF  THE  AGE — 
CONCLUDED. 

The  Inter-relations  of  the  Oenins  and  His  Environment. — 
Illustrated  by  a  Well-known  Fact  of  Vegetable  Physiology. 
— This  View  Favored  by  Opinions  of  Grant  Allen  and 
Herbert  Spencer. — Summary  of  tlie  Whole  Subject  by 
William  James. 

In  preceding  chapters  we  have  considered, 
somewhat  at  length,  the  four  varieties  of 
human  surroundings — the  home  and  school, 
the  physical  or  geographical  habitat,  race, 
and  the  various  characteristic  influences  of 
the  age,  in  their  bearings,  severally,  upon 
geniuses.  Let  us  now  attempt,  briefly,  a 
comprehensive  view  of  the  entire  subject  of 
genius  and  its  environment,  to  the  end  of 
determining  the  actual  participation  of  the 
latter  in  the  production  of  the  former. 

It  is  a  fact  well  known  to  vegetable  physi- 
ologists, that,  when  the  natural  forest  growth 
in  any  locality  has  been  destroyed,  an  en- 
tirely new  species  of  tree  will  often  appear 
in  its  place.  This  new  growth,  too,  will  be 

(291) 


292  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

found  to  be  indigenous  to  a  locality  so  remote 
from  the  place  of  its  appearance  that  all  the 
known  theories  of  the  dissemination  of  seed 
are  wholly  inadequate  for  accounting  for  the 
phenomenon.  A  recent  writer*  tenders  this 
solution  of  the  long-standing  puzzle :  The 
earth,  he  claims,  is  everywhere  transfused 
with  vegetable  germs  —  not  seed  —  which 
spring  into  palpable  life-forms  whenever  the 
necessary  physical  conditions  obtain.  Every 
foot  of  soil  is  therefore  capable  of  producing 
any  vegetable  growth  that  the  physical  en- 
vironment of  the  time  may  favor,  and  as 
changes  in  the  latter  are  brought  about  from 
time  to  time,  either  by  artificial  or  natural 
agencies,  there  will  result  a  correspondingly 
obvious  change  in  the  vegetable  growths  that 
appear. 

Whether  this  theory  be  accounted  scien- 
tifically sound  or  not,  it  may  be  made  to 
serve  as  an  illustration  of  a  possible  solution 
of  our  present  inquiry,  if  we  concede  that 
genius  is  a  sort  of  primordial  germ,  im- 
planted in  the  human  family  much  more 

*  R.  W.  Wright,  in  "  Life— Its  True  Genesis." 


INFLUENCE  OF  THE  AGE.  293 

widely  than  has  generally  been  supposed, 
and  which,  whenever  it  meets  with  certain 
felicitous  surroundings  of  time,  place,  and 
opportunity,  bourgeons  forth  into  extraordi- 
nary flower.  In  this  case  it  is  evident  that 
the  environment  must  count  for  at  least  half, 
if  not  more,  of  the  joint  product. 

This  last  conclusion  harmonizes  with  the 
opinion  entertained  by  Grant  Allen — if  we 
may  be  allowed  to  apply  his  remarks  con- 
cerning communities  to  individuals  also. 
He  says:  "The  differences  between  one 
nation  and  another,  whether  in  intellect, 
commerce,  art,  morals,  or  general  tempera- 
ment, ultimately  depend,  not  upon  any  mys- 
terious properties  of  race,  nationality,  or 
any  other  unknown  and  unintelligible  ab- 
straction, but  simply  and  solely  upon  the 
physical  circumstances  to  which  they  are 
exposed.  We  can  not  regard  any  nation  as 
an  active  agent  in  differentiating  itself; 
only  the  surrounding  circumstances  can 
have  any  effect  in  such  a  direction.  There 
is  no  caprice,  no  spontaneous  impulse  in 
human  endeavors.  Even  tastes  and  inclina- 

19 


294  A   STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

tions  must  themselves  be  the  result  of  sur- 
rounding causes." 

Herbert  Spencer,  too,  in  his  ' '  Study  of 
Sociology,"  affirms:  "Before  he  [the  gen- 
ius] can  remake  his  society,  his  society  must 
make  him.  All  those  changes  of  which  he 
is  the  proximate  initiator  have  their  chief 
cause  in  the  generations  he  descended 
from." 

This  last  view,  however,  is,  we  think,  very 
ably  combated  by  a  recent  critic,  William 
James,  in  the  following  passage  :  "If  any- 
thing is  humanly  certain,  it  is  that  the  great 
man's  society,  properly  so  called,  does  not 
make  him  before  he  can  remake  it.  Phys- 
iological forces,  with  which  the  social,  polit- 
ical, geographical,  and,  to  a  great  extent, 
anthropological,  conditions  have  just  as  much 
and  just  as  little  to  do  as  the  condition  of 
the  crater  of  Vesuvius  has  to  do  with  the 
flickering  of  this  gas  by  which  I  write,  are 
what  make  him.  Surely,  Mr.  Spencer  does 
not  hold  that  the  convergence  of  sociological 
pressures  so  impinged  on  Stratford-upon- 
Avon  about  the  26th  of  April,  1564,  that  a 


INFLUENCE  OF  THE  AGE.  295 

William  Shakespeare,  with  all  his  mental 
peculiarities,  had  to  be  born  there,  as  the 
pressure  of  water  outside  a  certain  boat  will 
cause  a  stream  of  a  certain  form  to  ooze  into 
a  particular  leak  ?  And  does  he  mean  to  say 
that  if  the  aforesaid  William  Shakespeare 
had  died  of  cholera  infantum,  another  mother 
at  Stratford-upon-Avon  would  needs  have 
engendered  a  duplicate  copy  of  him,  to  re- 
store the  sociological  equilibrium,  just  as 
the  same  stream  of  water  will  reappear,  no 
matter  how  often  you  pass  a  sponge  over  the 
leak,  so  long  as  the  outside  level  remains 
unchanged?" 

Confirmatory  of  the  last  view,  Charles 
Darwin  declares:  "The  immense  majority 
of  changes  wrought  in  organisms  are  pro- 
duced by  internal  molecular  accidents,  of 
which  we  know  nothing." 

Speaking  of  the  same  changes  and  their 
causes,  Mr.  James,  above  quoted,  remarks : 
"In  the  first  place,  they  are  molecular  and 
invisible ;  inaccessible,  therefore,  to  direct 
observation  of  any  kind.  Secondly,  their 
operations  are  compatible  with  any  social, 


296  A   STUDY    OF  GENIUS. 

political,  and  physical  conditions  of  environ- 
ment. The  same  parents,  living  in  the  same 
environing  conditions,  may  at  one  birth  pro- 
duce a  genius,  at  the  next  an  idiot  or  a 
monster.  The  visible  external  conditions 
are  therefore  not  direct  determinants  of  this 
cycle ;  and  the  more  we  consider  the  matter, 
the  more  we  are  forced  to  believe  that  two 
children  of  the  same  parents  are  made  to 
differ  from  one  another  by  a  cause  which 
bears  the  same  remote  and  infinitesimal  pro- 
portion to  its  ultimate  effects  as  the  famous 
pebble  on  the  Rocky  Mountain  crest,  whose 
angle  separates  the  course  of  two  rain-drops, 
itself  bears  to  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence  and 
to  the  Pacific  Ocean. 

"The  causes  of  the  production  of  great 
men  lie  in  a  sphere  wholly  inaccessible  to 
the  social  philosopher.  He  must  simply  ac- 
cept geniuses  as  data,  just  as  Darwin  accepts 
his  spontaneous  variations.  For  him,  as  for 
Darwin,  the  only  problem  is,  these  data 
being  given,  how  does  the  environment  affect 
them,  and  how  do  they  affect  the  environ- 
ment ?  Now,  I  affirm  that  the  relation  of  the 


INFLUENCE   OF  THE  AGE.  297 

visible  environment  to  the  great  man  is  in 
the  main  exactly  what  it  is  to  the  variation 
in  the  Darwinian  philosophy.  It  chiefly 
adopts  or  rejects,  preserves  or  destroys — in 
short,  selects  him.  And  whenever  it  adopts 
and  preserves  the  great  man,  it  becomes 
modified  by  his  influence  in  an  entirely  orig- 
inal and  peculiar  way.  He  acts  as  a  ferment, 
and  changes  its  constitution,  just  as  the  ad- 
vent of  a  new  zoological  species  changes  the 
faunal  and  floral  equilibrium  of  the  region 
in  which  it  appears. 

"The  mutations  of  societies,  then,  from 
generation  to  generation,  are  in  the  main  due, 
directly  or  indirectly,  to  the  acts  or  the 
example  of  individuals  whose  genius  was  so 
adapted  to  the  receptivities  of  the  moment, 
or  whose  accidental  position  of  authority  was 
so  critical,  that  they  became  ferments, 
initiators  of  movements,  setters  of  precedent 
or  fashion,  centers  of  corruption,  or  destroy- 
ers of  other  persons,  whose  gifts,  had  they 
had  free  play,  would  have  led  society  in 
another  direction. 

"The   fermentive    influence    of   geniuses 


298  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

must  be  admitted  as,  at  any  rate,  one  factor 
in  the  changes  that  constitute  social  evolu- 
tion. And  thus  social  evolution  is  a  result- 
ant of  the  interaction  of  two  wholly  distinct 
factors  :  the  individual,  deriving  his  peculiar 
gifts  from  the  play  of  physiological  and 
infra- social  forces,  but  bearing  all  the  power 
of  initiative  and  origination  in  his  hands ; 
and,  second,  the  social  environment,  with  its 
power  of  adopting  or  rejecting  both  him  and 
his  gifts.  Both  factors  are  essential  to 
change.  The  community  stagnates  without 
the  impulse  of  the  individual.  The  impulse 
dies  away  without  the  sympathy  of  the  com- 
munity." 

This,  as  it  seems  to  us,  is  a  frank,  clear,  and 
plenary  statement  of  the  real  inter-relations 
that  subsist  between  the  genius  and  his 
environment,  and  as  such  shall  constitute 
our  final  word  upon  this  part  of  the  subject. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

ATTITUDE  OP  THE  PRESENT  AND  THE  FUTtTBE 
TOWARD  GENIUSES. 

The  best  that  is  possible  has  been  already  attained  in 
Architecture,  in  Sculpture,  in  Human  Figure- Painting, 
in  Literature,  and  in  Music. — Possible  Exceptions  as  re- 
gards Historians,  Critics,  and  Fictionists. — Inferiority  of 
the  Poetry  of  the  Present  Day. — Scientific  Discovery  and 
Mechanical  Invention  the  only  Fields  open  to  Future 
Geniuses. — Science  comes  to  the  Rescue  of  the  Non-Scien- 
tific Mind  from  Mediocrity,  by  Her  Promise  of  a  Future 
in  which  the  Human  Family  will  far  surpass  att  its 
Antecedent  Experiences,  in  Brain-power  and  Organiza- 
tion.—  Uncertain  Nearness  of  Such  Promised  Novum 
Organum. — Relativity  of  Oreatness. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  age  of  pyramids, 
pantheons,  and  cathedrals  has  forever  passed 
by.  May  it  not  be  affirmed  with  equal  prob- 
ability that  the  world  shall  never  again 
behold  a  pyramidal  Angelo,  a  pantheonian 
Shakespeare,  a  cathedral  Milton?  The  hu- 
man mind  is  finite,  and  therefore  is  not 
susceptible  of  infinite  expansion.  In  not  a 
few  directions,  it  would  appear  the  utmost 
limit  of  human  achievement  has  long  ago 
been  reached ;  and  what  the  race  has  since 

(299) 


300  A   STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

been  able  to  accomplish  in  these  directions 
has  fallen,  and  most  probably  ever  will  fall, 
more  or  less  below  the  high- tide  marks  of 
by-gone  days.  One  of  those  unsurpassable 
attainments  is  architecture. 

If  massiveness  and  grandeur  be  sought, 
the  architect  of  to-day  must  go  back  four 
thousand  years  to  the  cities  and  monuments 
of  the  Nile  and  of  Northern  India,  where, 
among  the  ruins  of  those  ancient  civilizations, 
he  will  find  them  in  unapproachable  perfec- 
tion. If  symmetry  of  outline  and  proportion 
and  chaste  beauty  of  ornamentation  be  in  re- 
quest, the  very  essence  and  soul  of  these  he 
will  find  incarnated  in  the  still  flourishing 
orders  of  ancient  Greece.  But  if  poetic  or 
religious  effect  be  in  demand,  nowhere  will 
he  realize  these  so  completely  as  in  that 
petrified  duplicate  of  Nature' s  own  vital  archi- 
tecture— the  Gothic.  May  a  man  ignore  these 
venerated  sources  and  yet  dare  to  call  him- 
self an  architect  ?  or  may  he  essay  to  rival 
any  one  of  them  and  not  end  his  days  in  a 
mad-house  ? 

Closely  related  to  architecture  is  sculpture ; 


PRESENT  AND   FUTURE  ATTITUDE.      301 

and  in  this  art  also  all  modern  efforts  are 
invariably  regarded  as  successful  only  in  so 
far  as  they  approximate  the  models  set  up 
by  Greece  more  than  twenty-five  centuries 
ago.  In  painting,  too,  in  so  far  as  its  object 
be  the  delineation  of  the  human  form,  its 
cultivators  must  have  recourse  to  the  antique 
studio  last  named. 

Of  all  the  various  branches  of  literature, 
there  are  but  two  whose  present  status  is 
that  of  growth  and  improvement  as  com- 
pared with  former  conditions ;  these  are 
history  and  criticism.  And  yet,  even  in 
these,  for  what  is  gained  in  accuracy,  thor- 
oughness, and  fairness,  there  is  perceptible  a 
sad  diminution  of  old-time  picturesqueness, 
eloquence,  boldness,  and  those  rhetorical 
strokes  which  always  so  fascinate  and  im- 
press the  student.  Not  to  speak  of  such 
literary  potentates  as  Spenser,  Milton, 
Shakespeare,  Dante,  Ariosto,  Boccaccio, 
Johnson,  Burke,  Pope,  Goldsmith,  Cowper, 
Burns,  Goethe,  Schiller,  Richter,  Cervantes, 
Moliere,  and  Voltaire,  who  will  name  among 
living  authors  the  peer  of  each  of  these  more 


302  A   STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

modern  literati:  Sir  Walter  Scott,  Dick- 
ens, Thackeray,  "George  Eliot,"  "Georges 
Sand,"  Victor  Hugo,  Balzac,  Byron,  Ma- 
caulay,  Carlyle,  Lamb,  John  Wilson,  De 
Quincey,  Shelley,  Hood,  Moore,  Longfellow, 
Hawthorne,  Irving,  Prescott  ?  In  the  line  of 
fiction  there  are  undoubtedly  at  present  a 
large  number  of  very  able  contributors,  and 
every  now  and  then  a  volume  is  brought  out 
which,  like  "Ben  Hur,"  or  "Yittoria,"  or 
"Paul  Patoff,"  proves  a  crown  of  aromatic 
evergreen  upon  its  author1  s  brow. 

In  the  poetry  of  the  present  day,  however, 
a  wonderful  contrast  is  presented  with  all 
that  has  preceded  it.  When  one  regards  the 
painful,  frantic  efforts  made  by  living  poets 
in  their  verse-bearing,  he  is  very  much  in- 
clined to  suspect  the  seasonableness  of  the 
product.  In  a  large  majority  of  instances  it 
does  not  conform  even  to  the  outward 
semblance  of  poetry,  the  greatest  possible 
inequalities  existing  between  the  quantities 
of  its  lines  and  stanzas,  and  its  paces  falling 
upon  the  ear  as  though  every  foot  of  its 
centipedal  body  were  shod  in  the  newest  and 


PRESENT   AND   FUTURE  ATTITUDE.      303 

clumsiest  of  wooden  shoes.  But  not  only  is 
its  rhythmic  structure  frightfully  unique 
and  fantastical ;  its  sense,  if  any  there  be,  is 
so  involved  in  unusual  phrases,  and  so 
masked  by  subtle  allusion,  that  one  is  dis- 
posed to  regard  the  whole  product  as  so 
much  versified  mysticism  or  rhymed  meta- 
physics. For  poetry  simple,  sensuous,  so- 
norous ;  for  poetry  that  takes  possession  of 
the  whole  being — the  eye  by  its  form,  the 
ear  by  its  music,  the  mind  by  its  symbolism, 
and  the  soul  by  its  emotion — for  this 
supremest  of  human  products,  one  must  have 
recourse  to  days  gone  by.  The  last  fifty 
years  have  not  witnessed  the  birth  of  a  single 
great  poem  ;  while  of  poems  of  a  minor  rank, 
though  still  of  a  hardy  if  not  perennial 
nature — like,  for  example,  "The  Deserted 
Village,"  "Childe  Harold,"  Gray's  "Elegy 
in  a  Country  Church-yard,"  "The  Cotter's 
Saturday  Night,"  "Evangeline,"  "In  Me- 
moriam, "  "  Thanatopsis, "  "  Snow-Bound, ' ' 
"Marco  Bozzaris,"  the  same  half -century  is 
singularly  and  lamentably  destitute. 
Since  penning  the  last  paragraph — indeed, 


304  A  STUDY   OF  GENIUS. 

just  before  going  to  press — an  anonymous 
article  from  the  Boston  Herald  came  to  hand, 
which  reiterates  in  substance  what  we  have 
just  alleged  concerning  the  unpromising  as- 
pects of  the  poetry  of  the  present  day.  Here 
are  a  few  of  its  most  significant  utterances  : 

"The  important  question  asked  at  this 
moment  is  whether  we  have  any  poets  who 
can  take  the  place  of  Browning  and  Tenny- 
son in  England,  or  of  Whittier  and  Lowell 
and  Whitman,  who  now  have  lead  in  Amer- 
ica. It  is  not  easy  to  answer  this  question. 
The  indications  in  both  countries  are  that  no 
writers  of  equal  strength  have  yet  appeared. 
The  fact  is  slowly  coming  home  to  us  that 
we  are  at  the  close  of  a  great  age  of  poetry, 
and  the  unexpected  and  sudden  death  of 
Browning  will  do  much  to  impress  this  fact 
more  strongly  upon  us. 

"  We  are  entering  upon  a  new  poetical  age, 
in  which  there  is  a  more  immediate  response 
to  the  spirit  of  the  hour  and  less  range  for 
originality  in  subject  or  in  its  treatment.  It 
is  not  likely  that  in  the  next  quarter  of  a 
century  any  poet  will  come  forward  to  take 


PRESENT   AND   FUTURE   ATTITUDE.      305 

the  place  occupied  by  men  like  Browning  or 
Tennyson.  In  their  cases,  the  devotion  to 
poetry  has  included  a  rare  consecration  of 
all  their  gifts,  and  nothing  in  the  way  of 
discipline  or  painstaking  was  beneath  their 
effort.  There  is  not  the  same  consecration 
of  gifts  among  the  poets  of  to-day  to  this 
end,  and  it  would  be  hard  to  point  out  in 
Europe  or  America  a  single  writer  of  poetry 
who  is  doing  really  great  work." 

In  music,  when  we  take  into  account  the 
llussia-like  extent  of  the  empire  already 
won  by  such  autocrats  of  tone  composition  as 
Bach,  Beethoven,  Mozart,  Haydn,  Handel, 
Rossini,  Weber,  Schubert,  Mendelssohn, 
Schumann,  Berlioz,  and  Wagner,  what  terri- 
tory is  there  left,  it  may  well  be  asked,  of 
the  conceivably  desirable,  for  future  aspir- 
ants to  occupy '( 

On  only  two  lines  of  intellectual  endeavor, 
as  it  appears  to  us,  does  the  future  hold  open 
the  gate  of  opportunity  to  the  ambitious ; 
and  those  are  scientific  discovery  and  me- 
chanical invention.  So  remarkably  fruitful 

have  the  past  fifty  years  been  in  the  number 
20 


306  A   STUDY    OF  GENIUS. 

and  importance  of  their  scientific  triumphs, 
and  so  many  and  so  highly  advantageous  has 
been  their  yield  of  mechanical  contrivances, 
that  one  is  bound  to  regard  the  careers  of 
these  branches  of  human  exploit  as  on  the 
ascendant.  And  this  impression  is  deep 
ened  when  we  consider  the  field  that  is  open 
in  these  directions — the  physical  universe, 
no  square  inch  of  whose  vast  extent  has  as 
yet  been  worked  to  exhaustion,  and  innu- 
merable of  whose  forces  have  as  yet  been 
wholly  unsubjected  to  economic  ends. 
Though  jealous  of  her  esoteric  truths — it  may 
be  uncompromisingly  so — yet  has  nature  ever 
shown  herself  to  be  ready  of  speech,  intelli- 
gible, and  richly  informing  to  all  who 
importunately  interrogate  her. 

What  is  life  ?  Which  is  first  in  order  of 
time,  protoplasm  or  the  organism  ?  How 
do  purely  immaterial  volitions  become  trans- 
mitted into  purely  material  movements,  and 
mce  versa  \  How  do  merely  physical  sensa- 
tions become  changed  into  strictly  psycho- 
logical phenomena  \  What  the  origin,  nature, 
and  pathology  of  such  dread  maladies  as 


PRESENT  AND  FUTURE  ATTITUDE.      307 

leprosy,  cholera,  and  hydrophobia  ?  What 
the  utilization  of  such  waste  natural  power 
as  that  of  water-falls?  What  the  further 
application  to  mechanical  ends  of  electricity, 
hot  air,  and  solar  heat  ?  What  a  more  cer- 
tain knowledge  of  the  coming  and  course  of 
storms  and  the  discovery  of  controlling  or 
dissipating  agencies  ?  These  are  a  few  of  the 
more  than  twelve  labors  imposed  by  that 
modern  Eurystheus,  Science,  upon  living  and 
future  investigators  of  natural  phenomena. 
And  what  an  opportunity  they  afford — nay, 
what  a  necessity  would  they  seem  to  create 
for  the  uprising  of  numerous  Herculean  and 
Samsonian  physicists ! 

Satisfactory  as  this  outlook  may  prove  to 
the  two  favored  classes  of  workers,  the  sci- 
entists and  their  practical  coadjutors  the 
inventors,  it  is  wholly  discouraging  to  all 
other  classes  of  intellectual  toilers — that  vast 
multitude  of  men  of  letters  and  of  aesthet- 
ics. Is  it  a  settled  matter  that  the  possible 
achievements  of  these  latter  aspirants  are  to 
become  more  and  more  circumscribed  with 
each  oncoming  decade,  until,  within  a  half- 


308  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

century  or  so  from  the  present,  the  re- 
searches and  contrivances  of  science  shall 
engross  the  intelligent  attention  and  brain- 
power of  the  world  \ 

Just  at  this  sorry  juncture,  science  herself 
comes  to  our  relief,  and  projects  a  jet  of  won- 
derful light  upon  our  dark  misgivings.  One 
of  her  latest  interpreters,  M.  Fouillee,  affirms 
that  the  brain  of  future  races  will  be,  not 
only  in  volume,  but  also  in  organization,  as 
superior  to  the  brain  of  existing  races  as  the 
latter  is  to  the  brain  of  simple  vertebrge. 
This  being  the  case — and  who  will  dare  to 
doubt  the  ipse  dixits  of  modern  scientists  \ — 
it  is  certainly  not  improbable  that  the 
melioration  predicted  will  affect  impartially 
all  human  minds — the  non-scientific  equally 
with  the  scientific !  In  which  event,  is  it 
not  also  probable  that  the  literary  and  the 
aesthetic,  as  well  as  the  scientific,  attainments 
of  the  future  will  excel  those  heretofore 
made,  by  as  prodigious  a  remove  as  the  lat- 
ter exceed  the  achievements  of  the  prehis- 
toric man?  Of  course,  in  this  case,  it  will 
follow  that  the  geniuses  of  the  future  will 


PRESENT  AND   FUTURE   ATTITUDE.       309 

be  as  superior  in  capacity  and  ability  to 
those  of  the  present  and  the  past  as  these 
were  superior  to  their  now  forgotten  contem- 
poraries. Does  not  the  mere  contemplation 
of  so  surpassingly  brilliant  an  epoch  cause 
one  to  experience  premonitory  symptoms  of 
that  predicted  cerebral  enlargement  and 
refinement  2 

Evidently  the  satisfaction  derivable  from 
this  promised  novum  organum  very  much 
depends  upon  its  possible  proximity.  Shall 
we  who  now  live,  or  shall  our  near  progeny, 
experience  its  advent  and  partake  in  its 
transcendent  felicities  ?  The  scientists  have 
announced  a  golden  age,  but  they  have, 
strangely  enough,  forgotten  to  advise  us  of 
the  time  of  its  arrival.  Are  we  to  infer, 
therefore,  that  its  approach  proceeds  at  the 
same  leisurely  pace  as  marks  most  other 
great  physical  evolutions — for  example,  the 
formation  of  the  successive  strata  of  the 
earth' s  crust,  or  the  development  of  distinct 
celestial  spheres  out  of  chaotic  star-dust  ? 
If  so,  then  may  we  well  forego  all  interest  in 

the  announcement,  and  fall  back  upon  our 
20 


312  A   STUDY   OF   GENIUS. 

so  measured,  the  later  investigator,  though 
working  in  much  higher  strata  of  knowledge, 
may  not  rank  himself  above  his  predecessors 
— the  developers  of  lower-level  phenomena. 


[THE   END.] 


A     onn 7         "'''' 


